Originally Posted by
1A_Please
It is hard to see what Sharp expects ACCC to do. Does he think a certain % of market share should be set aside for REX's use or that QF and VA have to charge a set fare? As was stated both airlines are effectively restarting from a ridiculously low base so, of course, they are adding capacity regularly and are also stimulating demand through rolling special deals. REX's entire jet expansion was predicated on the mistaken belief that VA would not restart and REX could copy Virgin Blue's 2001 playbook and become Australia's second airline. When Bain announced they were purchasing VA, REX should have seen that its attempt to start a jet operation was doomed. Bain was investing way too much to allow VA to fail.
Some have suggested that REX had a long-term plan to prompt Bain to also enquire the REX operation. That may have been a plan if they had maintained a successful regional operation and stuck to their knitting. It looks like REX will emerge from this folly severely weakened so Bain will not be interested in acquiring from the shareholders and will probably prefer to wait until they can get business from administrators at a discount price without the associated liabilities having to be taken on.
I imagine that even Rex doesn't expect the ACCC to do much, if anything at all. The only play I can see is that the ACCC gives them a shoutout in their next quarterly report on the state of the aviation market. If they got really excited the ACCC could investigate potential capacity dumping by QF/JQ/VA, but it is hard to make a case of that, and even harder for them to do anything about it. Rex is just making a lot of hot air in the same way that Ryanair does it - get the brand out, sell the woe is me, and hope that people will buy tickets off the back of it. It sounds simple but it is a fine balance because people won't buy tickets on a carrier that is, intentionally or not, admitting that they are struggling. I would think it would be better to complain less about your competitors (at least in the public sphere) and focus on spruiking how good your airline is, but my guess is that is not in Sharpy's playbook as it doesn't usually work well for pollies, especially those of a conservative ilk.