Rex Airlines has announced it has gone into voluntary administration and cancelled all flights between major airports.
Rex’s website showed no available flights between the capital cities from Wednesday, with passengers advised they could rebook with Virgin at no extra cost. All regional planes are still flying as scheduled, but no New England centre is affected.
Rex’s Sydney to Armidale service was suspended last year claiming a shortage of pilots and parts, with promised they would return at the end of March. The suspension was a few short months after Armidale Regional Council refurbished the airport to allow the airline to operate without gate security.
Then in February, they said they were not going to return services until at least October, blaming supply chain issues from Covid-19. When strongly criticised for breaking their promise by former MP Adam Marshall, who questioned the sincerity of their claims, the airline vowed to ‘put Armidale last‘ in any future resumption of services.
It would appear from this week’s events that Marshall may have been right to question the airline’s excuses.
A statement posted on Rex’s website on Tuesday said Regional Express Holdings Limited and a number of its subsidiaries under the Rex Group have entered voluntary administration.
Ernst & Young Australia have been appointed administrators.
“Flights between major airports have been cancelled, with the Rex Group’s domestic fleet of Boeing 737 aircraft all grounded,” the statement said.
“Affected customers are being contacted directly by Rex.”
The statement came after the carrier’s expansion into major city routes was been questioned by the prime minister. Rex began servicing Sydney-to-Melbourne, one of the busiest routes in the world, in 2021.
Regional Express’s shares went into a trading halt on the Australian stock exchange following recent boardroom turbulence and multimillion-dollar losses. Earlier this month the former chairman of 20 years moved to spill the company’s board, and this week they called in consultancy firm Deloitte to review the airline’s books.
Earlier Transport Minister Catherine King said the government was in contact with the airline.
“Regional aviation is incredibly important… aviation is a pretty tough business, and we’re seeing that,” she told ABC News.
Rex employs about 2000 people.
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