Rex to fly between Australian capital cities

[henrus]

$299 doesn't buy any salt and pepper squid ! Rex really need to accelerate their loyalty program if they want to compete on business heavy routes.

It'd go down as the best thing this year if Rex offered salt and pepper squid in their lounges. Even if they just did it for a single month/week it'd make headlines (and they say no publicity is bad publicity).

Would make for a hilarious ad campaign and no doubt would annoy QF even more than they currently manage.

 

[Eastwick20]

A screenshot taken from the GDS for this Saturday
QF and VA have sold a good amount of their Red E Deal/Getaway fare buckets
VA in particular going great guns!
Rex on the other hand...

 

[Melburnian1]

Certain parts of certain airlines are. Anyway, there are only a couple of people on AFF with the real inside story and it isn't either of us
I think our best informer is still under a contract though, has been very quiet of late

I thought you were referring to yourself, but am mystified as to who it is. Not 'The Insider'?

Post automatically merged: Apr 14, 2021

$299 doesn't buy any salt and pepper squid ! Rex really need to accelerate their loyalty program if they want to compete on business heavy routes.

Interestingly, just checked the seat map of ZL 444 (ADL-MEL) departing in 20 mins time (from this post). 7 business class seats occupied, and only 3 empty seats in economy. But VA flight departing around same time have similar loading - 8 business class occupied and only 4 empty seats in economy.

dajop, interesting, as a week ago I checked a couple of ZL flights on that route and observed pretty good loadings ex ADL, and reasonable ex MEL. One flight that's at 2000 hours at night wasn't as good though, but this may be true for 'the competition; as well.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Why on earth are Rex running a 2000 service on a Saturday evening. They may as well throw their investors cash in to a bonfire.

 

[henrus]

Why on earth are Rex running a 2000 service on a Saturday evening. They may as well throw their investors cash in to a bonfire.

I can't wait to see how many seats occupied once that one takes off... right now just 3 seats are selected but my guess is it'll leave with ~10.

In another news... If anyone is looking for a near private jet experience I know a couple of options over the weekend. Rex's 737 flights between MEL and SYD and Air NZ's 787 flights from AU to NZ (Saturdays SYD to AKL has just one person who's selected a seat). [oh i forgot to mention one of those comes with an unavoidable $5000 hotel stay at the end of the flight]

 

[jakeseven7]

I thought you were referring to yourself, but am mystified as to who it is. Not 'The Insider'?

Lol no, definitely not me! we have good contacts at the airlines because of the nature of our work but not inner workings!

I was referring to user pauly7 who bailed all of us out on AFF by giving us advance notice of what was going to happen at VA1 before it went belly up, allowed a lot of people to make decisions about what they wanted to do. That user it is suspected actually worked then on the sale of the business because they went quiet for months and months and said could only comment broadly on certain things now.

I checked - hasn’t posted for a long time but before that was very prolific so suspect may be still working for one of them....

Better than all of us arm chair analysts anyway!

 

[ANstar]

Just one small problem. None of the major mainline carriers are 'making money' at present. Alliance Airlines is an exception.

I thought JQ domestic was profitable in the half year results? It was Jetstar Asian ops that dragged them into the red and things have gotten better in the 2nd half.

 

[Saab34]

Now School Holidays is coming to an end we are seeing the dropoff in outbound OOL markets. Only 40 up from Melbourne this arvo.

Next few weeks numbers will be interesting.

 

[henrus]

Was looking at Rex's site and noticed this picture on the extras page:
To me, it looked like an A320 (based on the roof) which meant I had to go and find out where they'd got this one from...

Sure enough, it's a stock image:


Unfortunately, this has created even more burning questions like has rex purchased the rights to the single image or have they got an iStock subscription

 

[AIRwin]

Unfortunately, this has created even more burning questions like has rex purchased the rights to the single image or have they got an iStock subscription

Or they have purchased A320s?!

 

[Mattg]

Was looking at Rex's site and noticed this picture on the extras page:View attachment 245362
To me, it looked like an A320 (based on the roof) which meant I had to go and find out where they'd got this one from...

Sure enough, it's a stock image:
View attachment 245363

Unfortunately, this has created even more burning questions like has rex purchased the rights to the single image or have they got an iStock subscription

I'm not sure they would be able to replicate that image on one of their own aircraft because the cabin looks full!

 

[Mattg]

If anyone feels like a laugh, John Sharp wrote an opinion piece for the AFR yesterday...

No Mr Joyce, Qantas’ ‘best game’ doesn’t beat Rex

The chief executive likes to brag how strong the airline is. But it’s heavily in debt and burning cash.

www.afr.com

 

[Carrots]

If anyone feels like a laugh, John Sharp wrote an opinion piece for the AFR yesterday...

No Mr Joyce, Qantas’ ‘best game’ doesn’t beat Rex

The chief executive likes to brag how strong the airline is. But it’s heavily in debt and burning cash.

www.afr.com

He makes some valid points... but I do love when the pot calls the kettle black.

 

[HS-TQE]

Second that as well. Bloke is seen as hypocritical when his carrier also benefits from the government subsidies/contracts.

 

[henrus]

If anyone feels like a laugh, John Sharp wrote an opinion piece for the AFR yesterday...

A lot of the direct financial comparisons earlier in the article are a bit silly (a regional airline that previously just operated SAAB aircraft vs airline operating to every continent with the largest passenger aircraft in the world) however pointing out some of the key financial problems Qantas is facing are worthwhile noting.

The most amusing thing (and probably the only thing worth a laugh) is how Sharp thinks Rex is operating in the "same environment". Qantas has A380's they can't really operate sitting in the middle of the US burning cash. Rex on the other has been able to operate their entire fleet almost the entire duration of the pandemic because domestic borders have relatively remained open but also they received subsidies to operate most of their routes.

Obviously, the article is biased because the Rex chairman wrote it however if I were a Qantas investor I'd be worried. QF does continue to talk a big game and results aren't showing. Sharp is right, they have been saying the same thing that VA was before VA's collapse and they do have a large number of advanced sales many of which are for routes that I can't see them operating in the next 12 months - QF should give the money back now.

I'd love to see a similar article that is less biased from a KPMG type company however they'd never do that unless paid big $$$ and even then those sorts of large companies wouldn't want to upset Qantas as many of the higherups at companies like that receive Chairmans Lounge access and other perks from QF.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I feel sorry for poor ol' Rex

I'm flying SYD-MEL later this year and was all set to book Rex. Friends in the party however have QF Gold and Qantas Club, so everyone decided to fly Qantas, including non-status as they can be guested into the lounge. So Rex misses out on my business.

 

[dajop]

I feel sorry for poor ol' Rex

I'm flying SYD-MEL later this year and was all set to book Rex. Friends in the party however have QF Gold and Qantas Club, so everyone decided to fly Qantas, including non-status as they can be guested into the lounge. So Rex misses out on my business.

What was the fare difference though?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

What was the fare difference though?

Qantas was $169 compared to Rex business at $299. Rex economy was $79 or whatever, and QF has since come down in price to $109.

 

[Mattg]

Qantas has responded:

https://www.qantasnewsroom.com.au/media-releases/op-ed-claims-counterclaims-but-most-importantly-credibility-qantas-group-ceo-alan-joyce/

According to Alan Joyce's op-ed, which was also published in the AFR, "there are now so many ridiculous claims from Mr Sharp and Rex, we have started a new page on our website to debunk them."

This is the page:

https://www.qantasnewsroom.com.au/qantas-responds/qantas-responds-to-false-claims-from-rex/

 

[henrus]

Qantas has responded:

Alrighty. Just as I threw in my opinion about the Sharp AFR article I'll do the same here even though no one asked for it here we go...

The fact and claim page about Qantas launching new routes to hurt rex is funny, nine times out of ten they launched new domestic routes because that's all they can operate right now (so I don't know why QF is being all defensive there), if competition comes along then sucks to be Rex, that's just how business works.

Alan is right about Rex throwing tantrums and not wanting to talk about pax numbers. He makes some great points about Rex's aging SAAB fleet (average age 26 years) although the same could be said about the Qantaslink (average age 18.2 years with the F100's 27.8yrs, the 717's 19.2 yrs and the Dash 8-200's 25 years) however I'd argue this is where the valid points from QF stop.

Alan is saying Rex should provide "credible answers" however arguably Qantas should do the same thing. Notably absent from Qantas' rebuttal was talk of their finances aside from having a total market capitalisation which really means nothing as gamestop has shown and an "investment grade credit rating" which again is great but that's not what runs a business.

On the claim and fact page, they indicate that most of their liabilities are actually frequent flyer points (which seems unlikely given just last week QF was talking about strong forward bookings) which would make me concerned if I held vast amounts of QFF points given it's "apparently" a big liability for Qantas and something they could potentially fix overnight if they wished.

Again if Qantas wants "credible answers" from their competitors they should also be more open about their refund process. Saying you've helped 2.5 million people is great however I wonder how many are still waiting? There are people going to the news media saying they've been waiting up to 7 months and QF even told ET last year that outstanding bookings were around $2 billion.

Needless to say, given Qantas has set up a page to respond to claims (and indications they'll add to it as needed) I suspect we may see something from Rex soon or at least more of Sharp in the AFR. Whatever happens, the annual reports of both QF and ZL will make for rather interesting reads!