I think part of the discussion depends on your timeframe. I am thinking more about in 20 years time, but you would start planning for 20 years time very soon, and the markets will take their cue from those plans I think. Definitely BC can't be international only without connecting international flights to domestic. However I have had an "international domestic" flight before where my international flight landed in Sydney, where I connected to a QAN flight Syd to Melb doing immigration at Melb. However there would be a lot of lower frequency destinations that would rely on domestic. Saying that - international flights are unpredictable, and you can never guarantee you will make a connecting domestic flight, especially if you have to get through immigration as well prior to the connecting flight. So international "shuttle" services are a goer for Melbourne, and maybe less frequently Brisbane, Auckland and other places, but in 20 years time we would expect trends to continue re international flights.
