With Regional Express (Rex) filing for voluntary administration, this week’s Flight Friday looks at the current state of the larger operators (in terms of number of flights) in Australia.
Rex has a long heritage of operating regional turboprop aircraft—SAAB 340s—with an in-service fleet in the mid-50s during 2019. Rex’s utilization dropped during early 2020 with the start of the pandemic, which also applies to other operators globally, not just Australian operators. However, where Australia was a little different compared to most of the rest of the globe was its “second lockdown” during early 2021, again causing the utilization to drop again. In late 2021, Rex diversified its fleet and introduced the Boeing 737-800, which entered operations in early 2022, trying to fill a hole that was left after the bankruptcy of Virgin Australia. As the in-service 737-800 fleet grew to double figures, Rex’s SAAB 340 fleet was reduced by a fifth. Rex flew a little over 5,500 cycles in June 2024, making it Australia’s 4th-largest operator by flights.
Qantas, Virgin Australia and Jetstar Airways are the three big hitters in terms of number of flights. Again, these operators, like all other Australian carriers, suffered the ups and downs of the local and national lockdowns. Qantas and Virgin Australia are operating at mid-90% of June 2019 utilization, whereas Jetstar is almost 10% higher than June 2019 levels. Jetstar’s in-service fleet has grown by ten aircraft between 2019 and 2024, which really helps the aggregate utilization, whereas Qantas’ fleet is a handful lower than June 2019.
Alliance Airlines and Sunstate Airlines both operate many flights on behalf of Qantas, alongside a few other operators. Alliance has added over 30 Embraer ERJs to its fleet since 2019, and removed its legacy turboprop fleet, giving it a boost in utilization when compared to 2019. Sunstate is almost at 90% of June 2019 levels with a fleet of DHC-8-400s that is the same in-service fleet number as June 2019.
Rex’s demise could generate extra revenue for the above operators, but Australia’s airline history is recently a little checkered, suggesting it’s difficult to make money and survive in a highly competitive market without feeding Qantas in some way.
This data was put together using Aviation Week’s Tracked Aircraft Utilization tool.
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