As Qantas dominates the information feeds for all of the unsuitable causes, Australia’s latest home airline, Rex, has walked away with an Airline of the Yr award.
The inaugural Australian Aviation Awards had been introduced final week in Sydney, the place Rex was declared the Airline of the Yr. Rex chief working officer Neville Howell accepted the award and made particular point out of the airline’s government chairman Lim Kim Hai, saying he had “steered us by way of some very stormy waters. It’s been very, very robust, and he is aware of in addition to I, you may’t do it by your self; you want good individuals.”
Rex wins the 2022 Australian Aviation Airline of the Yr Award. Photograph: Rex
It’s the Rex crew that makes the distinction
Leaving none of Rex’s 1,650 workers out, he added, “And we’re very lucky at Rex to have unbelievable baggage handlers that don’t lose luggage, nice flight crew and flight attendants, unbelievable airport workers and essentially the most magnificent individuals in admin, they’ve all helped us by way of this troublesome interval.”
“So to them, that is for them, they’ve finished this for us and we really feel indebted to them for all the things they’ve finished for this airline.”
Mentioning baggage handlers first looks like a really pointed reference to Qantas and its CEO Alan Joyce. Qantas is within the midst of a firestorm with the union that represents baggage handlers, despite the fact that the airline outsourced baggage dealing with and round 2000 jobs in 2020. So bitter is the continuing dispute that the union has referred to as a strike for subsequent Monday by its members working for Dnata, the luggage handler who now companies Qantas.
That is the seventh Boeing B737-800 to hitch Rex’s home fleet, with two extra to be added as quickly as potential. Photograph: Rex
Rex earned its stripes in regional Australia
Whereas Rex is a brand new entrant to Australia’s home market, it has an extended historical past of service to regional and rural cities all through Australia. It was fashioned out of the ashes of the Ansett Airways collapse in 2002 beneath the Regional Specific banner, working its first flight from Wagga Wagga Airport (WGA) in New South Wales to Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport (SYD). It assembled the world’s largest fleet of Saab 340 plane, which completely suited the in depth regional community it constructed to attach rural communities to main facilities.
The Saab 340B fleet varieties the spine of Rex’s regional turboprop operations. Photograph: Regional Specific/Rex
In 2020 it introduced it was coming into Australia’s mainline home market, competing head-on with Qantas, Jetstar, and Virgin Australia. It launched its first home flight in March 2021 between Melbourne and Sydney and now operates a fleet of seven Boeing B737-800s on routes to Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, and Adelaide.
The Rex Group additionally owns Pel-Air Aviation, an air freight, constitution and aeromedical operator, and the Australian Airline Pilot Academy, which has campuses in Wagga Wagga and Ballarat, Victoria.
The Australian Aviation Awards are produced by Australian Aviation journal with the assist of the College of New South Wales Faculty of Aviation. There are 20 particular person and group awards, with the winners chosen from a brief listing of 118 finalists. On a wonderful evening for regional aviation, Tasmania’s Launceston Airport (LST) acquired the Airport of the Yr award and the Aviation Skilled of The Yr went to Kestrel Aviation’s head of coaching, Richard Butterworth.
On the ceremony, Australian Aviation’s Adam Thorn stated that no nation depends on aviation as a lot as Australia, and it’s a credit score to the entire of the business that it made it all through the pandemic. “Our nominees and winners did one thing much more particular, they thrived throughout the hardest interval in aviation’s historical past.”
Supply: Australian Aviation
