London-Singapore/Dubai-Sydney works, not a whole lot of other routes do
It's notable that Qantas, which still operates the 747 as well as the A380 on its Australia-London routes (with layovers in SE Asia or the Middle East) has just started using the Dreamliner to operate its first ever non-stop Australia-London flight, departing from Perth (Australia's Western-most major city) [1].
It's conceivable that over time, Qantas could retire all its 747s and A380s and fly all its London passengers from Perth on the Dreamliner, using its many 737s and A320s for connections to/from from the rest of Australia.
Is there a possibility of improvements to the 787 that would get it from London to Sydney/Melbourne non-stop? Or is that route off the table until the next generation?
I can't see either Air NZ or Turkish doing that. Air NZ already has a partnership with Singapore/Cathay so I'd imagine they'd continue to feed into SIN/HKG. Unless they form a partnership with Turkish which I also can't see happening even though they're both in Star Alliance. What's the downside of Qatar's hub? I'll be flying QR AKL-DOH-MAN then PRG-DOH-AKL this year so I'm interested to hear your experiences of QR via DOH.
It's notable that Qantas, which still operates the 747 as well as the A380 on its Australia-London routes (with layovers in SE Asia or the Middle East) has just started using the Dreamliner to operate its first ever non-stop Australia-London flight, departing from Perth (Australia's Western-most major city) [1].
It's conceivable that over time, Qantas could retire all its 747s and A380s and fly all its London passengers from Perth on the Dreamliner, using its many 737s and A320s for connections to/from from the rest of Australia.
[1] https://dreamliner.qantas.com/article/qantas-to-fly-non-stop...