Rex claims rare victory over Qantas to secure prized regulated route

The airline has notched one up on Qantas, snaring a prized government-regulated route from the larger airline.

QantasLink will disappear from a key regional route in the New Year after losing its state government contract to Rex.

Rex has scored a key victory over staunch rival Qantas, snatching a prized government-regulated route from the larger airline as well as retaining its existing routes in Queensland.

From the start of next year, Rex will replace Qantas’s regional carrier QantasLink on the Brisbane-Roma-Charleville run, after some discontent among locals about the flight schedule.

Rex will operate the route in addition to five others servicing northwest and outback Queensland.

Darwin-based carrier Airnorth had hoped to take some of those routes off Rex but was unsuccessful, despite strong support from local parliamentarian Robbie Katter.

Transport Minister Mark Bailey said the change of contract meant there would be more flights on the Charleville and Roma to Brisbane air route, which would give locals and visitors more choice of travel times.

“From January, approximately 18 extra return services will be provided per week, achieved through the use of smaller aircraft which will still meet passenger need with seat availability,” said Mr Bailey.

Rex will operate its 33-seater Saab 340s on the routes whereas QantasLink used 50-seat Dash 8s.

Mayor of Murweh Shire Council Shaun Radnedge said it would be great to have daily flights in and out of Charleville, after QantasLink reduced services to four times a week.

“Connectivity and air travel is an integral part of our community and when you do lose something it does cause a bit of discontent,” he said.

“We are absolutely stoked the government has listened and increased flights to our area.”

He said they had no particular issue with QantasLink but added that companies winning such contracts needed to be held accountable.

“We deserve and expect access to good, reliable transport services,” said Mr Radnedge.

“It’s about a nine-hour drive to Brisbane so the flights coming in are very important to health and education as well as the general connectivity of the wider community.”

Rex general manager of network strategy Warrick Lodge said the state government’s decision was a ringing endorsement of the airline’s service to remote outback Queensland over the last decade, and particularly during the pandemic.

“When Rex was awarded the five regulated routes back in October 2014, we promised the government and local regional communities we would exceed the already very high standards we had been delivering on the Northern 1 and 2 routes since 2010,” said Mr Lodge.

“Today, I can honestly say that we have acquitted ourselves well on the promise. We have achieved record customer satisfaction ratings and we have not had a single missed flight over the last seven years to the 23 communities that we serviced under the contract.”

A Qantas spokesman said the airline had a long history of flying to Roma and Charleville and it had been “a privilege to serve the local communities”.

“Qantas is in discussions with the Queensland Government regarding continuing to operate to Longreach,” said the spokesman.

“We operate to more than 20 destinations across the state and we expect to add further capacity into our Queensland network in the New Year.”

One route was yet to be decided, connecting Brisbane with Blackall, Barcaldine and Longreach. Currently operated by QantasLink, the airline was quietly confident of retaining the route despite Rex also tendering for those services.

The awarding of the five-year contracts came as Rex planned to ramp up services in Queensland following the announcement of new Brisbane-Sydney and Brisbane-Melbourne routes from December 17.

Rex shares were down 1.7 per cent at $1.44 on the ASX on Tuesday afternoon, while Qantas slipped 0.6 per cent to $5.23.

Originally published as Rex claims rare victory over Qantas to secure prized regulated route