Originally Posted by
number_6
QF does have landing rights at YYZ and there are A380 capable gates available, so it is not technically impossible. As for the importance of freight, when QF left SFO 15 years ago they kept ownership of a hangar at the airport and ran trucks from LAX to SFO airport with freight (the importance of silicon valley freight). The current SFO service loses money on pax but should be profitable with the freight.
QF didn't leave SFO 15 years ago. They may have moved most of their AU-US routes to LAX, but they still flew to SFO until May 2011 before resuming 5 years later.
They pulled out in 2011 not because the route was losing money, but because they thought they could make more money from DFW.
The old AU/CA agreement was 3000 seats/week for both nations and a limit of 2 cites (SYD+1 [MEL] and YYZ+1 [YVR]). The 2 city limit was dropped and the seats increased to 9000/week when AC was working on starting their flights to BNE.