Reality
The reality is that QF could take a loss on however many routes it needed to while competing with XR or whoever else until they muscled the competitor(s) out of the market.
After that, once they have the monopoly, they'll make money cause they can jack up the ticket prices to the extent where a typical passenger load from the particular port (such as ESP) will still break even or make money despite it not being so on other routes.
I.e. They (QF) may only break even on a flight from point A to point B with X number of tickets/pax sold at a price of $X. So, since places the WA coast towns are slightly shy on loads, they'll do ridiculously low prices to compete, then jack them up to $1.5X (for example) once they have the monopoly.
Just my opinion......as uninformed as it may be!
520.