Regional airline cuts its flight schedule almost in half

Flights from Burnie to the mainland slashed as regional airline cuts its services in half.

REX plane takes off.

THE Burnie Airport will lose 20 of its weekly return flights to Melbourne as airline Regional Express slashes its flights from outlying centres to Australia’s major cities and suspends some routes entirely.

King Island will be spared keeping its seven weekly return flights to Melbourne but Burnie’s schedule will drop from 27 weekly return flights to just seven,

The reductions come into effect on April 6.

Overall, Rex will be reducing capacity by 45 per cent and is suspending three routes.

Rex’s General Manager of Network Strategy and Sales Warrick Lodge said the operating environment was extremely fluid and the airline would monitor the situation closely.

“If the situation worsens we may be forced to further reduce capacity in the interests of maintaining essential regional air services,” Mr Lodge said.

“This capacity reduction alone will not be enough and we have reached out to local councils (airport owners) to seek a reduction in airport charges to keep operating costs to a bare minimum so that the reduced services can be sustainable.”

Regional Express is Australia’s largest independent regional airline operating a fleet of 60 Saab 340 aircraft on about 1500 weekly flights to 60 destinations across Australia.