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The story
History
The airline was established in 2002 when the Australiawide Airlines consortium (set up by former Ansett Australia employees) acquired Hazelton Airlines and Kendell Airlines, before merging the companies and starting operations as Rex in August 2002. In 2005, Australiawide Airlines was renamed Regional Express Holdings and partially floated on the Australian Securities Exchange. On 30 November 2005, Rex announced the acquisition of the Dubbo-based Air Link, another regional airline.
In October 2007, Rex expanded into Queensland when it commenced operations between Brisbane and Maryborough. This exacerbated an existing problem within the company of not having enough pilots to crew its flights (due to the expansion of larger airlines, especially Jetstar and Virgin Blue), and Rex suspended operations out of Brisbane (and from Sydney to Cooma during the summer "low season" for this route to the NSW ski fields) in November 2007. To provide a medium-term solution to the pilot shortage, Rex announced that it was establishing a cadet-pilot flight-training programme.
In November 2015, Rex announced the resumption of services to the NSW Snowy Mountains in conjunction with Snowy Mountains Airport Corporation, with the flights resuming in March 2016. In December 2015, Rex announced that it would be commencing operations in Western Australia in February the following year after being selected by the Government of Western Australia to be the operator of regulated RPT routes after a tender process. Initially operating from Perth to Albany and Esperance, in July 2018 the Western Australian operations expanded to include Carnarvon and Monkey Mia. It brought Rex's weekly flights to roughly 1,500 across 60 destinations.
Starting on 6 April 2020, Rex significantly scaled back all its regional services due to the COVID-19 pandemic, continuing to only offer government-subsidised services within Queensland and Western Australia and one flight a week between all 54 regional and remote communities within its route network. Services including Adelaide to Port Augusta, Sydney to Newcastle and Sydney to Armidale were suspended.
In June 2020, eyeing the demise of Tigerair Australia, Rex announced interest in expanding into the domestic airline market between Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Rex leased six Boeing 737-800s previously leased by Virgin Australia to operate the new services, with the first delivered in November 2020. The first jet operations began on 1 March 2021 on the Melbourne to Sydney route. Also in June 2020, Rex announced that it had entered into a memorandum of understanding with ATR to explore options for replacing the Saab 340 fleet with ATR 42 and ATR 72 aircraft. Following the airline's launch of jet services in March 2021, Rex replaced the announced Brisbane jet services in early April with services to Adelaide and Gold Coast, with the start of services occurring between 29 March and 1 April. The airline later cancelled all 737 flights and went into administration.
2024 voluntary administration
In July 2024, the company requested a trading halt. This sparked comparisons with Bonza, that had collapsed and later was wound up earlier that year, and calls by the Transport Workers' Union of Australia for government intervention, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese asking for time and conditions and criticising the company's move away from regional service. It later suspended ticket sales with plans to exit out of the capital city market and appointed EY as administrators. Capital city flights were suspended, with an agreement reached with Virgin Australia to accommodate affected Rex customers between 30 July and 14 August 2024. On 31 July, the company was placed into voluntary administration and cancelled all capital cities flights, but continued to operate regional services. PAG has held off taking the company under receivership, with the hope that the company will be sold instead. The leases on three of its Boeing 737s were taken over by Virgin Australia.
In August, the federal government guaranteed flights with Rex or moneyback. Administrators thanked the move as added certainty for customers during the process. However, there has been no specific dollar metric set until the event of cancellation, or say on whether further intervention might be needed to support the business or find a buyer including an outright bailout. This has also drawn slight criticism from unions and the federal opposition, calling it a "stopgap measure" and calling to go further as stated, including guaranteeing staff on the Fair Entitlements Guarantee, a system that was put off in the case of Bonza, with fears also for keeping remote communities connected to transit and essential services. Meanwhile, after an extended investigation into the source of a $500 million debt or possible insolvent trading, the administrators blamed a series of factors principally a pilot shortage and other supply chain issues, ex-staff entitlements and half-empty seats for the collapse. The company is indebted to a total of 4,800 creditors including ex-staff, airports and funders.
It is estimated that the administration of Rex has resulted in about 600 job losses within the company and counting, with the assurance that business is not affected and that the staff are not being stripped right down but in fact were returned to original levels.
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On 23 August, the company was granted an extension of the administration by the Federal Court of Australia to 25 November, allowing more time to process and bind expressions of interest but does not intend to use all of it to find a buyer. It was later revealed that there are reports of no real interest in buying the company and that the holding company may be either broken up and sold, placed into liquidation, and/or moved on to receivership. On 8 October, it was revealed a YouGov poll suggested high popular demand for further government intervention such as part-nationalisation of the company and setting up a separate industry commission, such as a "Safe & Secure Skies Commission", to reduce fierce monopoly and fair work and consumer affairs violations plaguing the industry.
In October 2024, Pel-Air was sold to the Toll Group. Wagga Wagga flight school, Australian Airline Pilot Academy was also put up for sale for $17 million.
In November 2024 its administration period was extended again to 30 June, with the government finally also in talks of giving the company $80 million and early access to the Fair Entitlements Guarantee. This move has angered rivals, who called out the government and administrators for not allowing for any discourse whatsoever and not looking into the greater competition or situation.
On 23 January 2025, the federal government announced it would acquire the $50 million in debt from the senior lender PAG in another effort to secure the future of the airline, becoming the new major creditor for the company and, as a creditor, filing to be a voting member in the administration's Committee of Inspection. The Government is reported to be supporting the company in finding a buyer, after the first effort did not find a buyer. While getting bipartisan support from the opposition, the announcement is made out by the government and analysts as a move to support regional areas in the near election.
On 12 February 2025, the federal government announced it would buy the airline if no buyer was found, coinciding with support of prospective buyers for the company.
In October 2025, the administrator entered a sale agreement with Air T to purchase the airline. The sale closed on 18 December 2025.
In May 2026, the federal government repaid Rex's outstanding debts to regional airports.
From Wikipedia’s article on Rex Airlines, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5