petitfromage - I think you are dealing from a full deck, unfortunately.
It will be horrorsville if CA get hold of CX unless CX maintain the representation and ticketing facilities within Australia.
CA and all other chinese based carries are an absolute atrocity to deal with. CX is on occasions (today was one) are very bad to deal with if it is in the least bit complicated and requires ticket issue offshore.
In the case of mainland China based airlines, we just do NOT bother as there is no way known to man that it is going to work anyway.
hopefully the Swire Group will retain control.
We can but hope.
Best all
EWL