With the future of the Rex airline in doubt and parliamentary questions about “Albo Air”, with Alan Joyce as the CEO of a Government-owned airline (which of course is cheeky political trash talk), 43 small country airline businesses say don’t waste taxpayers money on a rescue.
To date, the Albanese Government has stumped up $130 million to keep Regional Express (or Rex) in the air and operating. However, the AFR reports that the Opposition’s transport spokeswoman Bridget McKenzie says Transport Department officials have “finally agreed to meet with executives of the 43-member Regional Aviation Association of Australia (RAAA)”.
This week the Government said it could take over Rex if a buyer doesn’t show up by June 30 but country carriers reckon they can fill the void if Rex disappears, just like Bonza did in the middle of last year.
The Government’s takeover of Rex is, unsurprisingly, backed by the Transport Workers Union but the country carriers with names such as Airnorth, Link, Pelican, Nexus, Sharp Air and more, currently compete on 21 of Rex’s routes.
Interestingly, the AFR reveals that the regional carriers argue the sale process of Rex was inadequate and the accounting firm EY came in for some criticism from the country airline group.
Obviously, the 43 country airline businesses don’t want to compete with a government-owned big business. However, the travelling public would be concerned that smaller players would be more expensive and might not have the same safety measures of bigger players, who have a great safety record.
A future government needs an inquiry on how country Australia can be adequately covered with airline services. This industry is vital to business and the economy, and it has been mismanaged for decades, so it’s time that proper regulation and pricing controls were imposed on these over-protected airline companies.
This will be a big election issue for the bush, and both sides of politics need to come up with a viable policy ASAP.
