Few rumours circling that BA will drop SYD services from late next year.

Few rumours circling that BA will drop SYD services from late next year. Does anyone else think that Qantas will face a similar future with its LHR services?

No, given its alliance with EK, I don't think QF will remove LHR services.

BA - possibly. They seem to have cosied up to CX since the QF Love Affair finished when EK married Qantas. I can certainly see BA heading to HK and handing their passengers onto CX for the onward to SYD. Certainly might free up an aircraft for them. SYD is one of their last double stop destinations, so might make financial sense for this.

QF stopping LHR? I can't see this happening. EK use QF as two extra slots into LHR from DXB - and I think it suits both carriers. 

I'm not so sure. I know these rumours have been circulating nonstop. I personally think that they will hold onto it for a while, but expect extensive codesharing with CX and QR to broaden BA's reach across Australia.

I wouldn't be surprised. It's somehtig I ahve been saying for the last 2 years.

RE: Qantas removing LHR from their network.

Absolutely not. Qantas currently uses two daily A380 services, acounting for roughly 6800 seats per week into Heathrow. In July 2013, Qantas carried 17,000 passengers into the UK, which translates to a 1.1% marketshare. Compare this to BA which carried 3200 passengers, or 0.6% marketshare. Also of note, Qantas has seen a 34.1% growth in passenger numbers this year comapred to last into the UK.

Finally, Qantas held a seat ultisation factor of 97% on inbound flights into the UK. Whilst noting that this was for flights to the European summer, this is still an outstanding figure.

With these numbers, and the fact that London is a prime example of a legacy route, Qantas isn't leaving London anytime soon. 

BA have been suffering since QF switched to EK and BA lost the feeder traffic. The rumours suggest that BA and Qatar (QR) are pursuing a similar joint venture, having sponsored their entry into oneworld. BA will fly customers to Doha, with QR picking up the traffic from there to Australia. I don't think we'll see BA pull out until QR starts flights to SYD, which given their rate of expansion could be next year.

That is dependant on QR deciding they can stick a plane on the ground in SYD.

QR were given slots a few years back, but I recall Al Baker whinged rather about the curfew here in Sydney, hence not taking them up.

The current MEL flights arrive in late evening, and depart back to DOH after midnight, which was their preference for SYD too. 

Be interesting to see Al Baker change his mind on this, and keeping a plane on the ground all day, or overnight.

QF won't pull out of LHR - The slots there are too valuable to give up and if QF decide to do that then they would need to be sure that they won't want them back anytime soon!

As for BA... there always seems to be rumours of them pulling out of SYD. It is more likely than QF pulling out of LHR but I'm not sure...