T C o Borg
American Airlines do have rights on the SYD-LAX route and they exercise those rights by buying capacity on the QF flights (approx 6 flights per day). I believe that Northwest have rights but at this stage ar not using them - they might have lost them because normally it's a case of "use them or lose them".
Giving SQ rights on the SYD-LAX route would only be the foot in the door before they apply for rights on other potentially lucrative routes eg SYD-NRT, SYD-HKG, SYD-SHA. The island nation has nothing to offer in return so it would simply be a case of the revenue going to the Singapore economy at the expense of the Australian and US economies. All of us Australian taxpayers would lose out.
There is no level playing field in commercial aviation and our Government must recognise this and thus play hardball rather than be Mr Niceguy.