My uncle is a retired UA 744 pilot, including the aussie routes. He said no matter the passenger loads, the transpac 74-'s always had 1.0mil. worth of cargo. His impression was that the cargo always paid the bills on those routes. I saw a news release once...UA does 7% of the aussie cargo (not much compared to QF...but go figure).

I used to fly the aussie routes 4x/year. my impression was the cabin was always full of paid C/F...hard to get upgrades no matter the routing. I think the pax business was better for UA when Ansett was there (oh how I miss those days!). The *A connection just sucks in SYD now (particularly if going to BNE). maybe the new SIN venture in Oz will provide new *A opportunities?

Speaking with various UA agents, the aussie routes are definitely a milk-run for them...they always add flights seasonally (usually a sign of high demand) and my guess is those will be permanent as back in the old days (particularly with the loss of the AKL connection to MEL/SYD not taking up the slack). It's so much better now from aussie since the US$ crashed (was 2:1 during the Sydney olympics) and they had a tough time with fares against QF. My impression from aussie was that most did not like QF, loved SIN, and UA was pretty good...particularly with the airpass.