Rex to fly between Australian capital cities

[henrus]

Well if the seat map is accurate, this morning's ZL9 SYD-MEL at 7am had no passengers.

Thats crazy. When will this madness end!

 

[Jacques Vert]

Well at least they won't have to clean the plane in MEL.

 

[Saab34]

I think the whole thing appears pretty much dead. Check out some other Melbourne and even Gold Coast flights this morning. Pretty dire numbers

Sort of numbers OzJet was pulling

 

[Must...Fly!]

And suffer the losses from multiple shutdowns both in and out of Perth courtesy of the WA government.... it’s probably a major consideration

At least they could try arrange for some freight space to be contracted. No easy answers here, the jet plan was always suspect and it's turned out exactly as many here supposed it would.

VA is not collapsing (again...), Rex are losing the PR war, and Qantas has a firmer grip on whatever exists in the corporate market than it has had in probably the past decade.

Perhaps time the body and soul was reunited with the heart in the country...

 

[jakeseven7]

VA is not collapsing (again...), Rex are losing the PR war, and Qantas has a firmer grip on whatever exists in the corporate market than it has had in probably the past decade.

The PR war is just an ego stroke for Sharp who likes to think he is a BSD and has exactly zero effect on bookings I think.

Agree with the fact VA2 shouldn't collapse and agree QF is cuddling all the business/corporate/premium customers to them now - perhaps a few tiny/super budget conscious ones are left at VA2 these days.

 

[henrus]

Well at least they won't have to clean the plane in MEL.

I'm also happy to report that there were no Qantas spies onboard.

 

[Must...Fly!]

I'm also happy to report that there were no Qantas spies onboard.

However there was a very confused VirginAustralia Wi-fi access point

 

[serfty]

The PR war is just an ego stroke for Sharp who likes to think he is a BSD and has exactly zero effect on bookings I think. ...

It must be my IT background, but BSD to me means something completely different.

However there was a very confused VirginAustralia Wi-fi access point

See my prior sentence ..

 

[jakeseven7]

It must be my IT background, but BSD to me means something completely different.

Lets just say we use the Julie Bishop acronym version

 

[Saab34]

Isn’t Sunday night meant to be full on down this corridor?
Stay away from those maps unless you want a fright.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Isn’t Sunday night meant to be full on down this corridor?
Stay away from those maps unless you want a fright.

I would only be frightened if there were more than 20 Qantas spies on board...

 

[dajop]

Isn’t Sunday night meant to be full on down this corridor?
Stay away from those maps unless you want a fright.

Their Sunday afternoon flights fared substantially better with the 16:00 and 17:00 MEL-SYD flights having 136 and 130 on board respectively, But dropped off at 20:00 to 85. In the other directions loads weren’t so good for 17:30, 18:30 and 19:30 were 82, 39 and 107.

Other routes, generally better. ADL seems to be doing well. OOL not quite so good heading north but almost full for southbound flights for the day.

Sounds like they need to look hard at their MEL-SYD schedule.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Just flew jq on syd Mel with at least 140 spare seats on an A321. Going up over the weekend there was lucky to be 40 on an A320.

Mel-Syd seems to be tough atm

 

[dajop]

seats maps aren't a good indicator of bookings. Many people don't care where they sit or have got the impression that most airlines want to charge extra to pick a seat.

The seat maps we’re all talking about are actually the seat maps looked at AFTER the flight has departed! You can retrieve them from ExpertFlyer for a day or so after the flight departs.

 

[CanadaGirl]

At the beginning of 2020, anyone predicting a flight with zero passengers would have been deemed mad!

 

[HS-TQE]

As long as there are some people with 'egos' at REX, it's unfortunately (in the case for jobs) likely the losses for the abysmal loads on the capital city routes is going to carry on for some time.

Going the 'armchair CEO' route, it's obvious that their (REX) loads on the OOL tends to scream out that they should be at least 'strongly consider' aiming primarily towards the leisure (U)LCC market, the U being a point of difference of sale if they intend to compete with JQ on the leisuire runs.

 

[dajop]

As long as there are some people with 'egos' at REX, it's unfortunately (in the case for jobs) likely the losses for the abysmal loads on the capital city routes is going to carry on for some time.

It's not necessarily the "capital city routes", but more MEL/SYD. ADL/MEL seems to be doing a lot better (but not the 6am ex-ADL though) This morning's MEL-SYD flights were almost empty, whilst MEL-ADL was almost full. They also seem to do better during middle of the day.

The trouble with MEL-SYD is you can't compete if you don't have flights every 30 mins, but there are many routes without this sort of frequency that could be in play.

 

[Saab34]

Tiger did well on the route but had a different offer.
I think they need to have a economy basic sort of fare bucket which takes $20vor whatever off to eliminate the luggage factor. That’s a large chunk of the Jetstar market right there.

They really need to operate the Tiger schedule. Pretty much exactly as it was

 

[henrus]

At the beginning of 2020, anyone predicting a flight with zero passengers would have been deemed mad!

Sadly I think even if covid wasn't a thing Rex would still struggle to get into the market.

 

[1022]

Does a Saab have the legs for SYD-MEL? Obviously scheduling and routing logistics are much harder than just grabbing an empty Saab for any given leg for your 10 pax. And those 10 people might be a bit peeved or startled with the swap from a jet to a prop, but might that stem some of the bleeding?

QF has been very nimble on my regular BNK-SYD route swapping between 737s and Dash 8s pretty regularly. The other week I had a flight downgraded from 737 to Q400 to a Dash8-200....