Are we expecting QF to announce further Australia-Dubai 'feeder' routes?

Are we expecting QF to announce further Australia-Dubai 'feeder' routes?

As far as I can see, it would be obvious to put an A330 on Perth-Dubai for kick-off. Maybe a 747-400ER could do BNE-DXB? If that's too many seats, could QF's current A330-200s do it?

No, I dont think QF, will be announcing anything like this, as QF already have daily A380 services operating from Sydney and Melbourne to London via Dubai. Emirates covers the other major cities such as Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane. QF and EK will be operating a total of 98 flights from Australia to Dubai, therefore Australian destinations are already well serviced. 

I have heard that QF and EK will be closely watching how popular the flights are, and I am sure they will launch more flights if necessary. 

I highly doubt it. Rumour also has it that Emirates will be sending the A380 to both Brisbane and Perth later this year, as well as the already announced second daily to Sydney. That's plenty of additional seats to start off with.

I'm not going to comment on the possiblities of these flights, but will on the physical side of these routes.

You mentioned the Perth- Dubai route, which is not possible using the A330-200, with its range being 527km too short, unless payload restrictions were in place. The Brisbane-Dubai route can be done on a B747-400ER, with 1000km to spare, however the A332's range falls 3500km short for this route.

EY operate a 332 service Daily BNE-SIN-AUH, so there is always that option. But I am sure that QF are happy to let EK operate the PER, ADL and BNE Routes.

Only via codeshares...

With no new wide bodies scheduled for delivery - all that is on the list are A330s back from Jetstar (reliant on the 788s), the deferred 8 A380s (not scheduled until 2016 at least) and the options on 789s (from 2016) as well as more 747s that need to be retired (the ones that aren't getting refurbed)

I would see QF International shrinking further, before it has a chance to add routes.

CL9, the A330s would reach Dubai from Perth easily wouldn't they? Emirates used to send their 300s to Perth. 

I know, and I thought this too, but according to Qantas' fleet info page, it is 527km too short on the -200 model.

Actually, I'm quite sure QF's A330-200s would easily reach Dubai. In saying so, I doubt Qantas would add such a flight on that route when their is the EK A380 launching on it soon.

Oops, so sorry guys, you are right. Qantas.com had the conversion from nautical miles to kilometres incorrect.

On great circle mapper, the distance from PER-DXB is 4874nm, or 9027km. On Qantas.com, the maximum range with full payload is 8500km or 5300nm, which isn't equivilent.

Sorry about that, and yes, according to Qantas' nm range figures, it could reach Dubai, with over 400 nautical miles to spare. (:

It looks like the figures were put together by a goose who doesn't know the difference between a nautical mile and a regular mile. 5300m = 8529km, but 5300nm = 9815km.

Good to know we can have confidence in Qantas knowing how far their planes can fly...

Pretty sure the one of the larger points of the alliance was to shunt people over to EK to avoid having to expand QFi any further. EK have "the money, the metal and the cost base" to add more services that QF can happily sell code-shares onto and reap the commission. 

tronixstuff I think you are spot on I believe that is the key point to the alliance.  It allows Qantas to still offer Europe and Africa as virtual destinations, while the Qantas international division focuses on developing profitable international routes.

EK still have a number of slots to Australia that are not yet utilised and that is where the expansion will come from along with adding more A380 flights.  I wouldnt be surprised to see them go into SYD and MEL 4 x daily

It is strongly rumoured QF will reduce their London services to one a day, but it will probably depend on how much traffic they keep taking to LON, which is by far the biggest European destination from Australia

Dubai as a destination and not a transit or stopover point would not have enough passenger numbers from Australia/NZ for Qantas to warrant deploying multiple aircraft there let EK aircraft do that

Emirates has already used up all their rights for major centres (which I believe cover SYD, MEL, BNE and PER). They can add more flights to Australia, but they have to be to secondary centres like ADL, DRW, NTL, CNS.

Unless they can renegotiate their rights (probably a possibility now that they have Qantas as a partner), they only way they'll be adding more flights in SYD/MEL is through codeshares on Qantas.