So essentially to fly busness class from say Adelaide to Berlin, you would fly VA then EY then AB. One would imaging that would be quite a different customer experience with each plane change on that routing with three different carriers?!

"awful Frankfurt Airport, with its kilometres of miserable grey corridors" FRA is my favourite airport in Europe and the reason I choose to fly LH more often for long-haul. Perhaps you need to spend some more time there John to truely appreciate the German efficiency at work there? :-)