I would happily sit upright for 18 hours if it meant sticking it to the ME hubs (or even the Asian hubs). It's a pity the Perth domestic-international transfer is such a long distance - that airport really needs work.
With such a huge feeder network already in existence (widebody aircraft from the East Coast around the clock), Perth could be a great hub if it could get it's act in order. (CAT III would help too, but I digress...)
I personally doubt the 787-9 would do this run but I have speculated that the 777-8X could if expectations become real.
Banjo:
The 777 200 LR could do it now.
Yeah but someone forgot to order them. And in any case, it would have needed to have significant number of high yield premium seats to make it work - hard to justify in a cyclic marketplace, and probably a good decision, no,
lucky decison given what's happened to the market since 2008 (good decision re the 777 LR, still bad decision, no,
criminal decision re the 777 in general).
I guess the good news could be that it would be a fuel critical sector so seats should be limited... Theoretically that could mean better lie-back seats in Y-class, but then again pigs fly Mach 5 in my version of the future.
Definitions for the purposes of the last sentence:
"Theoretically" = good idea, but does not meet corporate ideals
"Could" = should, but does not meet corporate ideals
"pigs fly Mach 5 in my version of the future" = I have some really good ideas but they don't meet corporate ideals