Meanwhile the WA domestic flying (which is high yield mining business, and consists of customers who will not fly LCCs...) continues to expand exponentially and they need all the B737NGs they can get. No competition from LCCs, only Skywest is the threat. Five new QF 737-800s arrived in the last couple of months to expand the market. New WA mining destinations and increased services to existing destinations about to kick off (at the expense of QFLink). That is what the QF PER base will be doing - and quite profitably, I expect.
Further to this, given the extra demand and the 73Hs all heading to PER, there has been rumour of the 717s heading back East again and NJS setting up a CBR base for them... Anyone heard more? A 717 would walk all over a beat-up old 737-400 on CBR-SYD and CBR-MEL, not to mention those Dash 8s (esp as more and more pax work out that the E170 is a far nice aircraft from a pax perspective)...