REX’s Grand Plan To Dominate Fly-in/Fly-out Charters

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October 14, 2022
REX

REX: “We plan to be the largest Fly-in/Fly-out operator in Australia.”

That’s the bold promise from REX executive chairman Lim Kin Hai after the airline’s A$48 million acquisition of FIFO specialist Cobham Regional Aviation Services Australia last month.

In Perth with his deputy chairman and aviation veteran and former federal transport minister John Sharp, Mr Lim said it will not happen tomorrow but “slowly we will win more and more business.”

REX is a regional passenger specialist with 61, 34-seat, SAAB 340s and seven, 162-seat Boeing 737-800s, while Cobham has six 100-seat E190 jets and eight 80-seat Q400 turboprops.

Cobham, which in a nod to its roots thirty years ago, is being rebranded National Jet Express, has two more Q400s on the way and another two E190s being sought.

And that is just the beginning says deputy chairman John Sharp.

Flying out of Perth and Adelaide, the FIFO business also includes overnight freight operations, including into Papua New Guinea.

The acquisition sees REX acquire a host of corporate customers across the mining, oil, and natural gas sectors. 

Mr Sharp says he’s keen to chase new FIFO business to build on the 17 destinations in WA and three in South Australia.

He adds that the aircraft offered in the E190 and Q400 are the most efficient and environmentally friendly which will give the new National Jet Express arm a significant advantage when competing for new contracts.

“Within a few years, National Jet Express will have expanded into new markets and have more aircraft and more customers. 

“It will be a bigger and better business, a much stronger business with a broader customer base, more contracts, and greater revenues,” he said. 

“I’m very confident we can achieve that.”

National Jet Express with its E190s is certainly on the right flight path as these aircraft, with their 100-seat capacity, are perfectly suited to a large section of the FIFO market.

In the longer term, NJE could also tap into REX’s growing 162-seat Boeing 737-800 fleet.

Mr Lim also said the airline group is looking at all-electric aircraft.

The airline is in a strategic partnership with Dovetail Electric Aviation to convert existing turbine engines into electric-powered, zero-emission models.

Rex is to provide a SAAB 340 to be used as a testbed as well as providing its engineering resources.

Mr Sharp said that a converted aircraft could be 40 per cent quieter with a similar drop in operating costs.

“We are very proud and excited to be at the forefront of this development in sustainable regional aviation,” Mr Sharp said.

“Dovetail promises to deliver the holy grail in aviation: true sustainability; lower maintenance and operating costs and also less waste as a function of the reuse of existing aircraft,” Sharp said.

He added that the “significantly lower operating costs of electric aircraft would help stimulate regional aviation.”

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