THis drive into Asia - utter, complete and total madness. My father was an old Asia hand and he traded in the East for Fifty years. You have to have balls of steel, invest a huge amount of time in personal relationships for maybe Ten years with no return and even then there is no guarantee, there were some markets where we tried and tried but could never get into.
Asia is littered with failed joint ventures and the bones of Western companies who tried to make money out of Asia. The story is always the same: "Huge growth opportunities", the Chinese then encourage you to invest down to your last shirt button in Asian based infrastructure and capital equipment, then there are "holdups", then the market potential doesn't live up to expectations, then a local competitor suddenly appears who makes a product uncannily like yours, you can't seem to make a profit, then you run out of money and your joint venture partner offers to buy you out for a song.
To make money out of Asia, you need a product that cannot be copied so that the Chinese have absolutely no option but to come to you. That means trade secrets, massively protected IP and handcuffed staff who cannot be bought. There is nothing Qantas can possibly bring to China that the Chinese aren't perfectly capable of doing themselves if they want to. There is zero competitive advantage for Qantas.
The Chinese will watch Qantas try and build their LCC model and if they succeed, the Chinese will simply copy it, then place regulatory hurdles in the way of Qantas ever repatriating a dollar to Australia.
No Westerner ever gets to make a dollar out of the Middle Kingdom if it can be helped!!!