REX will continue to service King Island if Federal funding granted

Regional Express says it will continue to fly between regional Tasmanian destinations if it gets aviation rescue funding from Canberra.

A REX flight arrives

REGIONAL Express says it will operate a limited service between Burnie, King Island and Melbourne during the coronavirus pandemic if its application for a share of the Federal Government’s aviation rescue package is successful.

REX services 54 regional and remote communities and announced last month it would cancel all flights between Tasmania and the Victorian capital because it could not afford to fly with dramatically reduced passenger numbers.

If its application is granted, Rex will fly to Melbourne from Tasmania – via King Island – on a Monday and Friday.

If Rex’s application is not successful the airline will suspend services in all states without State Government assistance – all except Queensland and Western Australia.

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The outcome of its application should be known at the end of next week.

Rex’s original plan was to shut down its entire network to conserve cash.

Queensland and WA responded to Rex’s March 19 appeal for a partnership approach to keep minimum essential services going.

“No other states have shown any interest,” the airline said.

“Fortunately for regional Australia, the Federal Government has stepped in to provide funding to support one return service a week,” Rex deputy chairman John Sharp said.

“Rex is fully mindful of the horrifying consequences to regional and rural communities like Broken Hill that may face either not having any air services or having a dramatically reduced air service.

“Lives could be lost because medical samples could not be tested in a timely manner or blood could not be transported. Rex had been fulfilling this critical and essential community service role in the past two decades without assistance from anyone, and often even losing money on communities with very small passenger numbers, because our heart is in the country and we were profitable enough to do so.”

But he said the airline was now “fighting for it own life.”

“Rex’s first priority is to survive this crisis so that regional and rural communities can count on our air connections to rebuild after the crisis, and long into the future,” Mr Sharp said.