Originally Posted by
NaFenn
Rex's
PR is atrocious. The issue with Monkey Mia is simple - it doesn't have the facilities for an RPT service to land at night or in poor weather. I can't speak for that particular incident, but if the flight was delayed to the point that they would have gotten there at night, or if the weather was crap then that's all they had to say. Keeping tight lipped for the sake of keeping tight lipped has shot them in the foot there as it is giving the public the impression that they skipped Monkey Mia because they felt like it.
It was quite nice of them to put it back on the state Department of Transport when they are the ones who caused the issue. The tender for RPT services closed late last year but as nothing has been announced I wonder if there has been a bit of a hiccup. In theory the current contract/license runs to the end of June but there is an option to extend until a new operator steps in, so watch this space.
Rex are also getting savaged by the Esperance community over cancellations, and it wouldn't surprise me if DoT were getting a little sick of the excuses. Ironically, the airline did pretty well by the state during the pandemic but now they seem to have dropped the ball. It seems to me that could be the opportunity for Nexus, given they have a HeliSpirit base there and as they come from a tourism company they would probably do a better job of building up traffic and attracting visitors than Rex could.