QF has history of unfair competition
For those of you saying Rex is ‘crying wolf’ or ‘having a whinge’...
Despite their issues they’ve managed to build a reasonably successful regional airline covering a lot of routes to small for QF/VA. Look at the last 5-10 years to see how many regional airlines have vanished that covered the same market to find your explanation of why that is a pretty good accomplishment. O’Connor, Vincent’s, Skytrans MK1, Brindabella/Aeropelican, Air South, Macair, the list goes on and on.
A bit of history for all of you.
Back when Rex started services ex TSV under the QLD govt subsidised routes, they decided to add TSV-MKY to their network.
QF responded by dropping fares by 30% and increasing capacity by 30-40%. They actually had to reduce services to other monopoly destinations to do this (Horn Island and Weipa). Rex lasted 9 months under these conditions before giving up. So the residents of NQ (Weipa/Horn Island) had to suffer under reduced frequency and higher fares while QF snuffed our a competitor somewhere else. PLUS the residents of TSV and MKY got cheap fares for a limited time, then back to high fares for you!!
Reality is both sides will take advantage of their respective strengths at various points in time.
QF have a history of ‘poaching’ profitable regional routes once another operator has done the hard work and built it up. Airnorth has expressed this exact concern about the DN-TSV route. Macair had QF move in on the TSV-ISA route. I’m sure there’s more than that.
Rex meanwhile know what it takes to run a regional network with slim margins. The regular news articles about their issues with regional councils have a lot of merit. Yes Rex seem to be aggressive but airport charges have a direct effect on the fares the passengers pay. I have heard of these issues playing out (through workmates that are dealing directly with councils) and some of the things the councils try to pull shows the massive lack of understanding in many regional councils.
Rex are not perfect by any measure, but they know their market and what it takes to work. I’d like to see all the armchair critics on here build a company that looks anything like that.