SQ is carrying primarily through-traffic. Through-traffic doesn't travel on QF. The options to Europe, on 'same carrier' were limited, or don't exist.
BINGO. Limited by QF management in recent years.
The gifting of QF pax who wish to travel to Europe to Emirates is madness. They book QF end up on Emirates, they enjoy the experience, which website do you think that they will go to next time?
Qantas has to install infrastructure is so many geographical ports, due to end-of-line operations. That means kitchen in each port, fleet presentation in each port. Engineering in each port etc
Singapore doesn't. It has it in one port - Singapore. All other ports are subcontracted via very aggressive tenders, driving absolute benefit in unit cost to Singapore airlines.
QF cannot do the same because?
etstar has delivered profitability. Maybe not as a Group, but certainly Australia has delivered year-on-year profit. The Asian businesses - well. There is more to it than just EBIT performance. There are synergies the benefit the Group as a whole. Subsequently, of the Group underlying results deliver sustainable returns, than this is what is fundamental.
This is the current management line and is wrong. Synergies like creating huge write downs for losses.
The bottom line is that QF management have been distracted by Jetstar and taken their collective eyes off the ball. Probably as a result of AJ being the father of Jetstar. Jetstar has COST QF money. There is no accounting standard in the world that would show otherwise.