Sorry 'Dog et'al, I'm going to stick up for Lester on this one!
Few on this forum have been less critical of REX management than me. In most things industrial that opinion hasn't changed. But you need to give credit where credit's due. After all this thread is about REX's annual result.
Sure, 90% of REX's routes are monopolies, but there's always been regulation to a large extent on intrastate services. LKH is a shrewd and quite often uncompromising businessman, but would you want anyone less running a company in such a difficult environment?
REX's astoundingly low debt/equity ratio didn't come about by accident, it was the result of the application of sound and fundamental fiscal mangement over a good number of years.
I whinge and moan about the T&C's as much as the next bloke, and I still believe that REX need to grasp the importance of retaining experienced crews, something that need not be mutually exclusive of a healthy bottom line. One thing they have given me and my family though, is a level of job security that frankly even the larger players are starting to look less than ideal on!