If you want to understand why the market reacted one way to Qantas's recent
market update and a different way to Rex's
update, you need only look at the substance of each.
While there's plenty of spin and fluff in the QF announcement, there's a solid core of factual financial information. For starters, QF actually nominate their 1H23 Underlying Profit Before Tax expectations within a fairly tight range; $1.2 - $1.3 billion. They also provide firm guidance on net debt.
The Rex announcement, on the other hand, is essentially nothing but spin and fluff. There is a marked credibility gap between saying you expect to be profitable in FY23 versus stating actual expectations for 1H as dollar amounts. And the market reacts accordingly.
There's also the matter of comparing what a company says to what you see it doing. For all Rex's talk about "strong demand" driving fleet expansion, what the market sees currently is Rex flying essentially the same schedule in late October with seven jets as they were in late August with only six jets; 198 flights for the week ending 23 October versus 196 flights for the week ending 21 August.
Pax numbers and load factors are much improved, for sure, but utilisation is pretty bloody ordinary; utilisation has declined since they added -MFM. With the talk of being in the market for another two jets, there would undoubtedly be some nervousness around Rex getting too far ahead of itself in terms of capacity.