number_6

Sure; NZ and Australia have an EU type arrangement (their citizens can work etc. in the other country, for example) and this has long extended to airlines. Just as QF operates LAX-AKL, NZ has operated LAX-SYD in the past (I think they stopped last year due to UA complaining about Star brotherliness). The feed problem at SYD and LAX is dire for airlines that don't have hubs there or partner well (NZ falls into that category, unfortunately). O/D traffic is something like 10% (still impressive, but it shows the need for good connections). I'm guessing that the DL business plan is for cargo/F/J sales covering the cost of the route, and any Y sales are the profit. They should be easily able to generate enough FF loyalty and corporate contracts to fill the F/J cabin. But on US-Australia it is still only a couple of seats per month available, instead of the thousands TATL. What a difference a route makes (and why DL wants to add this route to complement their many TATL and Asian routes).

By way of perspective, for most US domestic flights the profit is the highest 2 or 3 seats sold (out of 130 average capacity). The other 127 cover the cost of operating the flight. International routes are a lot more lucrative (when the demand is there, and it is hard to see the US-Australia traffic declining).

As an aside, I noticed that on the kangaroo route QF has FF seats in F/J available now every week (and about every other day); and BA on trans-Atlantic has FF seats available every single day for the next 6 months (I didn't look further). Astonishing change from even a few months ago. Looks like F/J travel has dropped a lot on some routes as this economy crashes.