Originally Posted by
christep
How about Cathay to Cairns then Jetstar to Darwin? That's only 2h35m on Jetstar.
That still requires about an extra 4 hours of flying ( not as awful as Sydney ) plus the additional time required for a 2nd stop enroute
The HKG-CNS flight looks like it stops at end of November and is only 1 day a week until then (Saturday) - there is no CNS-DRW flight by JQ on a Sunday , but there is one with Air North ( but with a 7:20 wait in CNS ) - I think that they would have a quicker journey going via Sydney
I think the best thing that the OPs relatives can do is remove the OneWorld blinkers and look at what makes most sense to get to DRW