<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Roger:
As stated, BA and QF have a monopoly of the direct UK-Australia market. Other airlines are of course indirect.
Last time I checked, BA and AY had a monopoly of non-stop flights between the UK and Finland. Last time I checked, BA and IB had a monopoly of flights between LHR and Spain. While I don't check the position on a daily basis, I guess the situation is not wildly different now.
BA and LX will have the monopoly on most UK-Switzerland routes and apparently BA are objecting to SWISS joining OW, yet that doesn't seem to be a problem with the other airlines I mentioned.</font>
QF and BA do offer the convenience of one flight number to AUstralia - but who cares ? They have to stop somewhere unless you know more than us and they have some super jet with a range of 11000 miles !! It is just as convenient to take any number of airlines ! You can also take the United into account - I know a number of epople who prefer to fly via the US instead of Asia ...