QF never started the ORD service. The 2nd time it was cancelled about a week before it was due to start, and pax rebooked onto AA ORD-LAX (quite a change to move from QF F on a 744 to AA F on S80). Obviously preparations were well advanced; and the problem wasn't aircraft availability (QF has up to 6 744s spending 12 hours a day on the ground at LAX). Obviously QF decided the route wouldn't be profitable, and codesharing on the hourly LAX-ORD flights on AA was good enough. More intriguingly QF has had signs up at MIA for QANTAS for several years now (and never flown to MIA, though they do codeshare on AA LAX-MIA). Maybe that is QF's secret plan.