Rex pilots prepare for industrial action over pay offer

The airline has accused the pilots union of spreading malicious lies over a new enterprise agreement that could leave flight crew much worse off.

Rex has accused the pilots union of circulating malicious lies to its members after an application was made to take industrial action over the airline’s latest pay offer. Picture: Grahame Hutchison.

Rex has accused the pilots union of circulating malicious lies to its members after an application was made to take industrial action over the airline’s latest pay offer.

The Australian Federation of Air Pilots has been in negotiations with Rex since 2018, in an effort to secure a new enterprise agreement for Saab 340 pilots.

According to the AFAP, the latest offer from Rex was the “worst yet” and represented a cut in real-term salary of more than 5 per cent since 2018.

“It does not contain back pay and does not cover CPI over the previous four years,” said an AFAP spokeswoman.

“As a result, Rex pilots have been left with little option than to exercise their lawful right to lodge an application for a protected industrial action ballot with the Fair Work Commission.”

In a bizarre statement to the ASX, Rex chairman Lim Kim Hai said the AFAP had circulated “malicious, misleading and deceptive” correspondence to members in the context of ongoing EBA negotiations.

“It is disappointing that AFAP would manipulate information provided to them during the course of negotiations to seek to achieve its aim,” said Mr Lim.

“It is particularly concerning that AFAP whose president (Louise Pole) is a pilot with the competitor (QantasLink) would take this approach given the significant efforts made by Rex during the pandemic to preserve the jobs of pilots when so many other airlines were terminating theirs.”

The AFAP spokeswoman said they stood by their communications with members and would continue to communicate in “an honest, timely and accurate manner”.

Mr Lim went on to defend Rex’s decision to cut a number of regional routes flown by Saab 340s, when government support for those services ended on June 30.

He said a board meeting last month had resolved to channel any resources from those axed routes into other regional routes with strong passenger numbers and growth potential.

“Rex’s current regional flying is about 90 per cent of pre-Covid levels with passenger numbers equally at about 90 per cent of pre-Covid levels,” Mr Lim said.

“Rex believes that it will be reaching over 100 per cent of pre-Covid levels of regional flying activity at the start of the new financial year as a result of the board’s decision.”

Cuts to regional routes had raised concerns the airline was aiming to prop up its expansion to major city routes, using former Virgin Australia Boeing 737s.

As The Australian reported on Monday, passenger loads on the narrow body jets were worryingly low on many weekday services, which were competing with Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin.

Rex deputy chairman John Sharp insisted the airline was in good shape, and would continue its drive into capital city markets with the help of $150m in funding from PAG Asia Capital.

He said Rex was yet to dip into the second half of the funding, which was provided in return for two board seats and a 47.6 per cent stake in the airline.