Originally Posted by
FWAAA
Not terribly unlike traveling from the USA to Australia. Perth (and other West coast cities) requires connecting at SYD or MEL or BNE all of which are on the East coast. Similarly, don't look for nonstops from BOS, NYC, WAS or MIA to anywhere in Australia. Currently, there is one flight to/from Australia that doesn't land on USA's West Coast: the QF DFW flight.
Different reasons there: it's not about connections but rather about the sheer distance involved. SYD-DFW will be the longest scheduled flight in the world once SQ's A340 routes end, and QF can only operate it nonstop in one direction. NYC-SYD would be nearly 10,000 miles -- 1,500 miles longer than SYD-DFW and 500 miles longer than NYC-SIN. Well beyond the distance at which you can economically operate a nonstop flight at this point. PER-LAX would be almost as long as NYC-SIN. It is about 5,000 miles from the West Coast to London, a little more than half the distance between SYD and the East Coast and pretty much the same as flying from the West Coast to East Asia.
If AA and BA had better integration, I could easily see more nonstop service from the West Coast straight to LHR. It would help if the US had visa-less transit to make things easier for people connecting from Mexico and the South Pacific, but that's a different can of worms...