Ops Normal, I don't work in the airline industry, but I am frequently a passenger. About 9 years back I semi-regularly used the QF MRZ-SYD service. I know that delays happen for various reasons and are at times inevitable. Once experienced a weather related diversion to TMW and a bus to Moree. But the Q Link crew kept us informed every step and as a safety issue, I had no problem with that. What I would have a problem with, is after many years of providing a safe and reliable service, a govt tender is awarded to a company with a poor reputation in that community against the community's wishes and within one year, that company proves once again it is not able to reliably provide the promised level of service.
If there is no guarantee that a flight will run on any given day, and ambiguous information is given at short notice about cancellations and delays for customers relying on the service to get them to business meetings/medical appointments/international connections on time, do you seriously expect they will continue to use it? Especially when there are alternatives available which admittedly might add 3 hours to the travel time, but offer better reliability?
Let me also say, I respect the hard, complex work and long hours put in by both flight and cabin crews, and many years of lurking on Pprune has taught me a regional airline is certainly not the easiest place to work. Because of this in part, and also because I am a generally patient and agreeable person who spent many years in customer service myself, I would not be inclined to vent my frustrations to the customer facing staff who are put under unreasonable pressure by the company's disorganisation.
What I would do is write to management and express my concerns. If these issues continued to occur and there was no satisfactory explanation, such as the airline being unable to perform maintenance on time leading to half its fleet being grounded and continuing to take bookings despite knowing it does not have the capacity to operate all those services, then like the good folk in Moree, I would vote with my feet and no longer patronise this service.
If you regard your customers with contempt, you will go broke very quickly. As a pilot, you have a job because the public need to travel. I hope that Brindabella sort it out because a lot of jobs are on the line and unemployment ain't fun in this economy, not to mention the flow on effects in the towns that will be left isolated if they wind up.