Lower Air Fares with the Australia/US open-skies agreement?

Australia and the USA have signed an open-skies agreement, eliminating air travel limits between the two countries. The accord will now allow more US and Australian based carriers to fly on this route, increasing competition and hopefully lead to lower fares.  This agreement breaks the long-standing monopoly of the direct route enjoyed by US carrier United Airlines and Australia's Qantas. Officials who signed the agreement said, "Eliminating restrictions on US-Australia air services means lower fares, more convenient service and more opportunity for travellers, commerce and carriers to thrive,"

Currently an adult fare from Sydney to Los Angeles direct costs between $A2100 and $A2300. United Airlines is generally 3-8% cheaper than Qantas, but it is one of the worst airlines (in my opinion anyway) due to the lack of passenger amenities, onboard service and older planes. Qantas, relatively speaking, is the better airline. But if you are not flying from/to either New York, San Francisco or LA you can pay a lot extra for the internal US connections. I have flown both airlines a number of times, and over a 15hr+ trip Qantas is currently the better choice. However both have significant room for improvement and real competition is the only thing that will drive them to improve.

So which airlines could take advantage of this open skies agreement? Here is my analysis:

-  Virgin Blue, the Australian low-cost airliner partially owned by British tycoon Richard Branson, said that its long-haul international carrier, V Australia, has already confirmed that it will launch nonstop services between Australia and Los Angeles in December.

- The Sydney-Los Angeles flight corridor is regarded by the Australian Government as a key national asset and Canberra has repeatedly rebuffed Singapore Airline's decade-long campaign for access to the route. With the open skies agreement though, Singapore Airlines can start local operations here and then fly on this route. Similarly, here is a chance that one of the Gulf (Middle East) airlines like Emirates or Qatar, which already fly to Australia and have operations here, could start flying this route.  However for any of these airlines,  it will still take some time to setup and clear any relevant local regulations.

- There are a number of US Airlines that would be interested in this route, but only one or two (like Northwest Airlines) have the financial and operational capacity to fly it.

Overall, I think that in the near term prices will continue to rise in line with the increase in fuel costs to the airlines. When Virgin (V Australia) starts flying, you will see some low promotional fares to get people flying on their planes - which could be a good time to make the trip to the US. However, the prices will soon revert to around the $2000 mark. It is only when the Asian/Gulf airlines and other major US carriers start flying this route, that significant fare reductions and improved onboard service will result - and this is assuming that oil prices don't shoot up by then.