Why does Qantas fly routes like Los Angeles-New York, Dubai-London?

I would like your opinion on why carriers like Qantas or BA or others do "one stop". For eg: Brisbane-LA-New York, where LA-NY is on their own metal, and the other being Sydney-Dubai-London. I understand the fuel logistics. What are the prime factors in wanting to fly onwards to London/NYC and other cities rather than stopping at Dubai or LA? I know BA does London-Hong Kong-Sydney and other carriers do something similar.

QF can't fly direct non-stop so it has to stop somewhere.

Flights stopping at DXB rather than going on somewhere else can be quite expensive. There's much more competition for flying to LHR than there is to fly to DXB.

Often it's also because due to curfews, slots, etc. airlines have to keep their planes sitting for most of the day. QF keeps their 380s at LHR like this. They also spend the better half of 14 hours sitting at LAX, so why not have them go to another popular destination with demand. EK also does this with their AKL services via Australia.

There are quite a few valid reasons why QF does the two routes you mention.

• SYD-LHR and SYD-JFK cannot be done non-stop yet. Both (LHR & JFK) are major business / leisure destinations which many Australians love to fly to on their national carrier.
• Strategy: EU is a big area and QF cannot hope to fly everywhere. Australia-DXB provides the majority ticket revenue to QF/EK in a revenue-sharing pact. It then allows travellers to head to Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid, Barcelona, Frankfurt, Rome, Athens, Budapest etc via a onestop (DXB) on either EK or other oneworld carriers, without backtracking from LHR.
• Similarly in the USA, QF has non-stop flights to HNL, SFO and LAX, covering the West Coast brilliantly. SYD-DFW covers the midwest, through AA's most important hub. On all these destinations, QF is able to maximise the amount of fare received and only passes off a small percentage to AA as a connecting partner. The LAX-JFK-LAX tag-on allows QF to service the most critically important East Coast market. JFK is also a good cargo market for QF.
• Demand on all these routes are well-defined and equalise annual revenue in a consistent manner.
• Minor tag-on connections on partner airlines do not drain heavily on revenue. ie: allowable mileage, or short, close tag-on sectors.
• Point-to-point (PTP) - a developed concept by Boeing and promoted since the birth of the B787 family - is still an emerging market. While gaining traction, it has not yet killed the ULH 'hub-hub' / 'hub-spoke' market, where aggregation of passenger numbers is still popular and financially beneficial. ie: Australia, with a small, scattered population base, long int'nl routes works best with aggregation (hence the importance of SYD & MEL to QF. PTP flying requires a greater number of smaller wide-body aircraft and works well in dense markets such as the USA and Europe.

A perfectly reasonable question to ask (shame on you down voters).

Note the LAX-JFK service is flown on the same 747 that flies to/from BNE. Whilst JFK is a popular destination it doesn't need the capacity of an A380.

If flights are running late there can be missed connections in LAX and with just the one flight a day on some routes this is far from ideal. So a direct non-stop flight to JFK once available will be great.