Australian carrier Rex to buy Cobham Aviation's mining charter service unit

Australian carrier Regional Express said Friday its unit would buy aviation operator Cobham's fly-in fly-out (FIFO) business National Jet Express for A$48m ($32.41m), marking its entry into the charter servicing sector. The deal comes at a time when regional heavyweight Qantas is looking to expand its footprint in the charter business, with the proposed acquisition of Alliance Aviation Services in an A$610.8m deal. Rex's bigger peers Qantas, Virgin Australia and Alliance Aviation are the dominant players in the Australian FIFO sector, where service providers ferry workers and miners to remote mining sites instead of total relocation. The acquisition of NJE, which provides freight services from Sydney to other neighbouring states, as well as air charter services in Papua New Guinea, gives Rex additional eight Bombardier Q400 turboprops and six Embraer E190 jets, it said. NJE generated a revenue of A$142m in 2021, Rex added. The carrier will fund about 50% of the deal through its joint venture partners who agreed to convert debt funding into newly issued shares in NJE to ease the carrier's "debt burden". "The joint venture will invest in modern aircraft and technology to enable NJE to expand from its traditional bases of WA (Western Australia) and SA (South Australia) and bring our unique brand of FIFO services also to Queensland and Northern Territory," Rex Executive Chairman Lim Kim Hai said.<br/>