There's going to be stacks of bases in Australia!
Just not with CX (or KA for that matter).
Australia signs open a skies agreement with China | Australian Aviation
Chinese airlines will have unrestricted capacity into Australia after the federal government announced it had reached an agreement with China for an “open aviation market” between the two countries.
CX always has an angle, I imagine Perth is a fishing expedition targeted at just the right amount of expats, and to suitably dangle the carrot of future bases which will never come.
The best part, finally the loads will lighten up and an FOC might actually work, however CX will probably down size to keep the load factor up
