Rex Airlines has been awarded Best Regional Airline Australia & Pacific at the 2023 World Airline Awards hosted by Skytrax.

Despite the ongoing impact of COVID on the aviation industry, Rex staff on the ground, in the air and behind the scenes are dedicated to providing the best possible experience to our customers.

Edward Plaisted, CEO of Skytrax, expressed his congratulations to the management and staff of Rex Airlines, saying: "We congratulate the management and staff of Rex Airlines for this great success at the World Airline Awards. Their achievement in being named Best Regional Airline Australia & Pacific is a fantastic accolade for the airline management and staff, which recognises the product and service quality being delivered to passengers."

Lim Kim Hai, Rex's Executive Chairman, emphasised the significance of this recognition for the airline's dedicated staff.

"Being voted as the best regional airline means so much to the 2,000 staff in the Rex Group as they go above and beyond every day in conditions that are still extremely challenging,” he said.

“We will live up to this honour by maintaining our record for safety and reliability delivered with our trademark country hospitality.”

The World Airline Awards, hosted by Skytrax, were held in Paris to coincide with the Paris Air Show. Established in 1999, the World Airline Awards are the most coveted quality accolades for the airline industry, and are often referred to as the "Oscars of the aviation industry".

Travellers across the globe take part in the largest airline passenger satisfaction survey to decide the winners, and the awards are respected as a global benchmark of airline excellence.

Rex was named Airline of the Year at the prestigious Australian Aviation Awards for 2023 organised in partnership with the University of NSW.

This is the second consecutive year that the airline clinched the Airline of the Year award.

Rex also won the Safety Innovator of the Year category.

Rex's flying school, the Australian Airline Pilot Academy took home the trophy for Flight Training Business of the Year.

"These awards have been won on the back of the extraordinary efforts of all our staff who are the most dedicated, hard working and loyal aviation workers in Australia. All the awards were proudly accepted on their behalf," Chief Operating Officer, Neville Howell said.

Rex received the ‘Airline of the Year’ Award at the inaugural Australian Aviation Awards for 2022.

The prestigious award was presented at a Gala Dinner in Sydney in front of several hundred guests including many of the industry’s leading lights.

The judges recognised Rex’s resilience, adaptability, flexibility, innovation and growth whilst keeping regional towns and major cities connected during a time of unprecedented adversity in aviation, and that Rex has been able to not just survive, but thrive, where other airlines have failed.

Not only does the introduction of Rex’s domestic trunk services bring another competitor to Aussie skies, keeping fares low, but Rex also provides passengers seamless connectivity to its regional network. The airline’s renowned customer-focused hospitality has also proven a strong point of difference throughout the pandemic, and particularly now during the post-pandemic travel boom, particularly Rex’s industry-leading on-time performance.

Forbes Asia ranked Regional Express (Rex) among the top 200 listed companies in Asia Pacific with revenue less than USD 1 billion in its issue of 21 September 2009. The winners were culled from 25,326 publicly listed companies and were selected based on profitability, growth, moderate indebtedness and future prospects.

No other airlines were selected and in Australia, only 17 other companies made it to the list.

The CHOICE domestic airline satisfaction survey conducted in 2005, 2007, 2009 & 2010 yielded first (2005 & 2007) and second (2009 & 2010) rankings for Rex. The domestic satisfaction survey studied overall consumer satisfaction with domestic airlines for economy flights.

Respondents were asked to rate how satisfied they were across a range of attributes, with percentage ratings given in the tables: