Someone is going to be left without a seat when the music stops in the current FIFO game of musical chairs.
Qantas's newly acquired Network Aviation is starting the delivery of their much expanded F100 fleet. This will greatly increase FIFO competition and ensure continual downwards pressure on the yields of independent FIFO operators, while broadening the offer of Network, which as the recent press release says, will be able to offer QF aligned RPT connections and services.
Skywest Airlines will have an interesting time going forward as two thirds of their $299M revenue last year came from FIFO and the remainder from RPT services. Skywest's substantial expansion into east coast turboprop RPT operations on behalf of Virgin will bring it into direct competition with Qantaslink.
Strategically, Skywest could find themselves caught in a pincer with increasing competition squeezing their west coast revenues, at the same time as Qantaslink commences the inevitable deep discounting of services to existing east coast ports when Skywest commences competitive operations.
The Oracle