Qantas to open a Q400 base in Perth
 

There is an interesting discussion on Airliners.net Australian forum 47 with posts from Qantas employees (reputable sources imo):

They will open a Q400 base in PER later this year operated by the Eastern Australian Division with 3 aircraft initially to operate short range flights e.g. KGI and to some of the 11 soon to be de-regulated destinations to take on Skywest F50's and F100's head-on and open up new markets.
The contract with Cobham will not be renewed in 2012 and the 717 fleet will be absorbed back into the mainline fleet. This could enable the return of QF mainline back to LST, OOL and HTI. With the threat of DJ's new J seat it will be coming more of a problem of JQ not being able to compete in these markets.
Also related to the topic:
Qantas will base the first 5 new 73H with new IFE in PER for intra-WA flying this year to be used in the ZNE, PBO, KTA, PHE, KGI and BME routes ex PER. In total 14 to be delivered in the next 12 months 11 to Qantas and 3 to Jetconnect. We could expect an official press release coming out from Qantas soon?

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-fo....main/5109739/

Would be great to see the flying kangaroo back here in OOL, as well as a 717.

The OOL-SYD route is quite saturated with capacity however; maybe JQ could cut back on 1 or 2 frequencies to allow for a couple QF 717 flights?

With a lot of new 73H going to WA, it will free up some 717s plus they are getting 2 more which could be added to eastern routes. They would be good for so many sectors SYD/BNE-ROK and SYD/BNE-MKY as well as SYD/MEL-LST also re-start HBA-ADL/BNE and a few MEL/SYD-OOL/HTI flights they may need new J seats to compete with DJ though.
Also with growth rates at OOL running so high, an excess in capacity now may not be excess in the near future.

Don't forget QF also have access to the F100 via Network, that could also be used on the East Coast.

I can't believe QF ever pulled out of OOL and replaced 737's with Q400's in LST. It would be great to see QF jets back in both cities.

If the 717's were to return to the east coast i'd put my money on them having a small J cabin (4-8 seats) deployed on large Q400 markets competing against DJ's Embraers ie. SYD-CBR, BNE-ROK (currently mostly Alliance Fokker 100), BNE-MKY etc. allowing the Q400's to either go west or deployed on current Q300 flights. Also I wouldn't be surprised to see 717 going on new markets like DRW-TSV, TSV-CBR. But I don't think we'll see them in Jetstar strongholds ie. OOL HTI NTL. Although the growth of intra WA traffic in the last couple of years is nothing short of amazing I can't see why the Q400, 717 and 73H can't co-exist even with the extra 717 (2) and 73H (5) aircraft.

Qantas are getting 3 more 717s, just been announced on airliners.net this will take the total to 16 of the type.

Would 2 of them be the 2 B717s being leased or is this an extra 3 on top of those 2 which would mean Qantaslink is getting 5 more B717s?

They currently have 11 x 717's... so yes five more to come then to make 16 in total.

Thanks for clearing that up, great to see more B717s for our skies :D