One of the big issues out of Albany was that pax, (80% of whom were business or government), were scrambling to make it to a Perth meeting by 1000 with a planned ETD Albany of 0755. SkyWest proved impervious to requests to position an F50 overnight so it could depart Albany and be in Perth by 0800.
Despite there being an ILS on rwy 14, there were many aborts with the arrival at around 0720. We see a fair bit of fog here.
Fares have been the other issue. Aircraft often leave here with dozens of empty seats, yet there are often only 2 or 3 discounted seats on any one flight. This has been a very sore point. Albany has many thousands of pensioners and other retirees who are price sensitive. Very few tourists fly into here because of price in the 1st instance.
I understand that the City of Albany, and other respondents, have left REX in no doubt about why this city was unhappy with the incumbent RPT performance. Reportedly, they have been offered a deal to base ex Albany.
My understanding is that the proposal is for 25 flights per week. There is plenty of scope to grow the service, but not if fares begin at higher than what they have been. (Albany has 33,000 population).
It will be interesting. happy days,