The bit that hasn't been explained is if all these pax get off in Dubai to go to european destinations (good for pax), who fills up the QF 1 out of Dubai to LHR? How many pax will QF pick up ex Dubai? My thought is not many.
One would think that LHR-bound pax from ADL, BNE, PER etc would fly to DXB on EK metal (QF flight number) and switch to QF1/9 in DXB. It seems to work perfectly fine for QF through SIN so I can't imagine it will be any worse through DXB.
Now, thinking about what value QF can add to EK with new destinations. What if QF started flying to new Asian destinations through Singapore? Australia-SIN-Asia? One flight from each Australian city, all timed to exchange pax in SIN before heading on to final destinations. This would not compete with EK (no one wants to fly all the way to DXB and back again). EK could bring pax to SIN from DXB and further west and put them onto QF metal to asian destinations that aren't served directly from DXB. Anyone think this could be a go-er?