Rex to fly between Australian capital cities

[MooTime]

And QF is swooping into that route in a classic pincer movement in June to scoop up all the premium passengers, JQ will scrape up the ultra budget crowd leaving VA and Rexy to fight over the budget/middle ground.

The middle ground is a very dangerous place to be in most market segments, especially the Australian aviation market.

Premium ADL-OOL passengers, yeah good luck with those numbers!

Most of AUS passengers are in the middle ground, rather safe segment IMO. Of course your premium, alas you don't pay for a single airfare, your company does.

 

[jakeseven7]

Premium ADL-OOL passengers, yeah good luck with those numbers!

Most of AUS passengers are in the middle ground, rather safe segment IMO.

No need to be rude, there are plenty of ADL customers who would prefer not to fly LCC to the Gold Coast. And anyway they don't need that many premium passengers to make money on that route as they are flying the QFLink E190's which are designed for such skinny routes.

History shows middle ground is a very dangerous place to be, but you are welcome to your opinion of course.

 

[henrus]

No need to be rude, there are plenty of ADL customers who would prefer not to fly LCC to the Gold Coast.

How dare you call Virgin a low-cost carrier. They're about as premium as you get for domestic travel right now, priority boarding that works, spirits in business class. I don't see the competition offering these types of amazing benefits .

 

[jakeseven7]

Rex attacks it’s main target : VA2!

——

Rex calls Virgin ‘weak competitor’ as it flies Melbourne–Canberra​

Rex has branded Virgin “a weak competitor as it announced it would rival the pair to fly Melbourne–Canberra.

Rex calls Virgin ‘weak competitor’ as it flies Melbourne–Canberra

The airline said it would offer one-way fares from $69 when it launches from 10 June – a price significantly lower than the current average.

australianaviation.com.au

 

[AIRwin]

I wonder if this is related?

ASIC reprimands Rex over failure to disclose capital city flight plans

The corporate regulator has reprimanded the airline Regional Express for failing to tell investors about plans to launch flights between Sydney and Melbourne before they were splashed across a national newspaper.

www.theage.com.au

Rex has been fined $66k for failing to lodge material information with ASX prior to informing the public:

https://www.rex.com.au/BlobViewer/BlobViewer.aspx?attachtype=MR&filename=496442374C6357616579484864517A5A50754E3168756D2B32777A696B6A346F3773654137347763557462714B712F724564396C44773D3D

 

[Must...Fly!]

So let me get this right...

Rex labels Virgin a weak competitor for not undercutting prices enough, while at the same time labelling Qantas a bully for entering new markets and coming in way below the comfortable Rex monopoly price..........................................................

 

[antycbr]

So let me get this right...

Rex labels Virgin a weak competitor for not undercutting prices enough, while at the same time labelling Qantas a bully for entering new markets and coming in way below the comfortable Rex monopoly price..........................................................

Rex would be best served to shut up and operate their airline… but when you are asking the media to do your marketing rather than having a marketing budget I guess this is the consequence…

 

[dajop]

Rex would be best served to shut up and operate their airline… but when you are asking the media to do your marketing rather than having a marketing budget I guess this is the consequence…

Rex gets headlines that say "Rex calls Virgin 'weak competitor' in a niche publication (Australian Aviation)

Virgin gets headlines that say "Some people may die" all over mainstream media..

Hmmm... which is worse ... I guess neither if you follow the axiom "no such thing as bad publicity"

 

[henrus]

So it's starting to get a bit crazy and I think Rex needs to stop realise what they're doing to the market. Right now it's clear many people are simply looking for the cheapest flight, however in 12 months time if Rex still exists, people will come to expect these prices from them and they're going to have a harder time charging more (which they'll have to do at some stage to make money). Virgin's CEO has said the loss leader fares aren't sustainable forever and only time will tell when this bubble pops.

An interesting metric is the searches for the four airlines, over the last 90 days Rex is still the smallest pieces of the pie:



Google data shows that when people search for either Rex, Jetstar or Virgin they don't even search Qantas however those searching for Qantas do actually look at Virgin, those searching for Virgin look for Rex and those searching for Rex look for Jetstar (with those searching Jestar also searching for Rex). What this means is they've somehow managed to get themself stuck at the bottom of the LCC market.

Iconically the "weak competitor" is almost back to pre-covid searches but Jetstar and Qantas have a long way to go. (you're looking at a 5-year graph below)

Hmmm... which is worse ... I guess neither if you follow the axiom "no such thing as bad publicity"

Surprisingly the events of yesterday haven't done much to the number of people searching for Virgin Australia. The media just make it seem much worse when people couldn't care and all the crazies on Twitter who were saying they're going to boycott Virgin are unlikely to be traveling anyway.

 

[dajop]

when people couldn't care

Same goes for what Rex thinks about Qantas or Virgin. Outside of this echo chamber no one gives a damn what John Sharp says about anything. I guess it is the nature of forums like this but we do tend to overanalyse things.

 

[henrus]

we do tend to overanalyse things

but that's what we do best!

 

[HS-TQE]

No need to be rude, there are plenty of ADL customers who would prefer not to fly LCC to the Gold Coast. And anyway they don't need that many premium passengers to make money on that route as they are flying the QFLink E190's which are designed for such skinny routes.

History shows middle ground is a very dangerous place to be, but you are welcome to your opinion of course.

QFLink E190s operated by Alliance. Similar arrangement to the USA Regionals with the E190s crewed by Alliance crews despite the painted red tail and QFLink stickers.

 

[jakeseven7]

QFLink E190s operated by Alliance. Similar arrangement to the USA Regionals with the E190s crewed by Alliance crews despite the painted red tail and QFLink stickers.

Yes we all know this... your point?

 

[MooTime]

Thanks for that info @HS-TQE, we're not all knowing everything as some here!!

Enjoy learning from the many in the know on these forums.

 

[dajop]

An interesting metric is the searches for the four airlines, over the last 90 days Rex is still the smallest pieces of the pie:

View attachment 248430

What is the impact of looking at searches for Rex and Virgin instead of "Rex airlines" and "Virgin Australia Airlines" ? Rex still quite low but Virgin moves above Jetstar. (noting Rex/Rex Airlines are well correlated as is Virgin/Virgin Australia Airlines - the peaks coincide but interestingly the peaks on the abbreviated versions are higher than just the bump from the long name version). I suspect a lot of people would just search for Virgin and Rex (although granted the former abbreviated probably is a common internet search term anyway).

 

[henrus]

What is the impact of looking at searches for Rex and Virgin instead of "Rex airlines" and "Virgin Australia Airlines" ?

Good question, there has been a slight increase in searches for 'rex' however it's clear that over the past year searches are have been high because people searching for 'rex' aren't always looking for the airline.

(graph is searches for rex over the last 5 years)


This can be seen below showing the related topics and queries for rex aren't even related to the airline.



By putting in "Rex Airlines" it's actually not referring to the search term "Rex Airlines" but rather the topic of Rex Airlines:


The search term 'Virgin' is slightly different as there are less related topics but it still makes more sense to just search by topic 'Virgin Australia Airlines'.

The google search trends is a public website so got nuts with the data you can pull out:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=AU&q=%2Fm%2F068kjh

Not only is it possible to search by topic/search term but you can look at a variety of different time periods and even by state/territory. For example here are the search trends over the last 7 days for the topic "Rex Airlines" in the ACT, you can clearly spot when the CBR-MEL flights were announced and interest has dropped back down again.



All results are indexed based on the busiest time you've looked at, so in the example above the 100% is the busiest time and everything else is relative to that time. What this means in the case of people in the ACT searching about CBR-MEL flights, there was an initial peak of interest but the next day searches were down 80%.

Google doesn't give away the search volumes for a specific term however having a look at Rex airlines in the ACT and how sporadic the graph is, I suspect in the 8 minute periods outlined below it's safe to assume they're only getting a handful of searches in each 8-minute block.

 

[Melburnian1]

Worth noting that Rex's launch fares on SYD-MEL were $79. The $69 CBR-MEL fares are actually lower.

The only reason Rex is now doing $39 on SYD-MEL is desperation. That price is below cost.

Presumptuous to opine it's 'desperation'.

Think of all the companies that issue samples to travellers at Central railway station in Sydney, or Flinders St station in Melbourne.

These corporates do it to increase awareness of their products. They lose money every time they hand out a sample, but believe it will in the longer term lead to sales and profits.

Rex is up against one behemoth (that's in dire straits financially but is prepared to lose money on new routes) and another larger recapitalised foreign-owned airline whose financial accounts are not open to public view.

Rex will lose a lot of money on its B738 operations but if individuals who fly domestically a lot pay for their own airfares and hence may be in favour of aviation competition, some should spread the word about Rex's presence.

Huge numbers of Australians wouldn't even know the name 'Rex' or 'Regional Express'.

 

[henrus]

Watch out Rexy... VA is coming for your routes.

by October VA will slowly add:
SYD-MEL an extra 33 flights per week
MEL-OOL an extra 15 flights per week
SYD-OOL an extra 23 flights per week

I look forward to a grumpy opinion piece about Virgin in the AFR tomorrow.

 

[Melburnian1]

April 2021 monthly punctuality statistics just out from BITRE show that on the Melbourne - Sydney northbound sector, Rex had the best on time arrivals performance with 93.7 per cent of its flights arriving less than 15 minutes late. QFd was second (91.9), JQd was 89.1pc and VAd trailed with 82.6 per cent 'on time'.

It's legitimate, rather than cynical, to suggest given ZL is often carrying fewer passengers, that helps punctuality because unlike say most suburban trains in Melbourne with 18 doors (one model has 12), airlines have a maximum of two doors through which to board or alight. However for the few flights I've looked at on EF - an insufficient sample - QFd's loads seem to be often quite low (though perhaps not as bad as ZL's). VAd seems fuller, but like the other pre-existing majors, it's cut frequencies from MEL to SYD. JQd has cancelled a few flights today on the route, so its loadings may not be as good as hoped either.

Overall nationally, VAd came in tops, beating QFd.

 

[Melburnian1]

Watch out Rexy... VA is coming for your routes.

by October VA will slowly add:
SYD-MEL an extra 33 flights per week
MEL-OOL an extra 15 flights per week
SYD-OOL an extra 23 flights per week

I look forward to a grumpy opinion piece about Virgin in the AFR tomorrow.

Are these '33 return trips' etc. or just 16 one way, 17 the other and so on?