Australian regional airline Rex to launch more flights in competition with Qantas, Virgin

Regional Express Holdings said Monday it would start flights to Adelaide and Australia’s Gold Coast by April 1 as it begins to challenge Qantas and Virgin Australia on the country’s big-city routes. The airline’s first Melbourne-Sydney flights are planned for Monday morning, at a time when domestic air traffic remains low due to the pandemic. Rex had previously planned to launch Sydney-Brisbane flights next to add a second route highly popular with business travellers, but it said it would instead launch the more leisure-oriented Melbourne-Adelaide, Sydney-Gold Coast and Melbourne-Gold Coast routes in time for the Easter long weekend in early April. Rex, which until now operated only ageing 30- to 36-seat turboprops on routes like Sydney-Wagga Wagga, is using six leased Boeing 737s that used to fly with Virgin to take on the incumbent players.<br/>