What people fail to realise is that to support and provide a service one must cover a broard area. there are many routes out there that lose or would lose money, but they are complimented and supplemented by the better ones. You can't just come in and run on the good ones chery pick and forget the rest. Either you run the network with the best aricraft for the job with fair prices, or you split it with competition and end up with say two operators with smaller less appealing aircraft, and sacrifice the service and standard and cut out the poorer routes. The government have realised this. It is not a matter of competition, but a matter of providing a network for the state, a quality service that is safe and professional and reliable. It is a unique area WA with long routes, small populations centres. You either have one good operator or two poorer ones to the detrement of the travelling pax... simple, logical maths....