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Regional Express (ASX:REX) expands regional services, dumps “marginal” routes

ASX News, Industrial
ASX:REX      MCAP $88.30M
15 June 2022 13:47 (AEST)

Airline Regional Express (REX) has unveiled its expansion of its services to 11 new major regional centres to its network.

These regional cities in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia will see up to 67 per cent increase in weekday return services especially in Broken Hill, Coffs Harbour and Wagga Wagga.

The increased services is expected to commence on July 4 and the new additional services are already on sale.

“Rex sees strong recovery in these regional centres and is dedicating considerable resources to meet this demand,” said General Manager of Network Strategy Warrick Lodge.

“These improved schedules will see us operating more flights on our regional network than pre-COVID and mark a significant turning point for the airline as we return to profitability.

“We are confident that FY23 will see a great improvement in the financial performance of our regional operations since Rex will only operate on densely patronized regional routes where the load factors and yields will be much more favourable.”

However, Mr Lodge confirmed that the company will abandon six “marginal” regional routes from June 27.

Routes such as the Sydney to Cooma route, which recorded less than 2000 passengers in the last year, will stop.

The company is Australia’s largest independent regional and domestic airline operating a fleet of 60 Saab 340 and 6 Boeing 737-800NG aircraft to 62 destinations throughout the country.

Shares in Regional Express were up 3.27 per cent, trading at $1.11 as of 12:42 pm AEST.

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