Rex slams Qantas for ‘opportunistic’ regional market expansion

Australia’s Regional Express has alerted the country’s competition watchdog on what it called an “opportunistic strategy of flooding the regional airline market with excess capacity” by rival Qantas. Rex, which most recently gained regulatory approval to commence domestic jet operations, also called on the Australian government to halt subsidies to Qantas, which it argues will “entrench the market power of the dominant carrier”. The criticism comes as Qantas announced a major expansion its regional network across three states. From February 2021, the Oneworld carrier will launch seven new regional routes, most of them from Melbourne. The new flights, to be operated by Dash 8 300s, add more than 320,000 seats annually. It will also see Qantas, together with its regional unit QantasLink, operate more domestic destinations than its pre-pandemic network. Qantas also announced that it was adding frequencies to existing domestic and regional flights from 2021, tapping into what it called “pent-up demand for travel”. This comes as international borders remain closed off to curb the spread of the coronavirus. <br/>