Regional Express (Rex) has called on the Australian Airports Association (AAA) to withdraw comments made in “The Australian” on Monday 31 July about the company “brow beating airports into deep discounts for landing fees and in some cases demanding free of charge...”
Rex’s Managing Director, Geoff Breust, said that the comments made by AAA’s Executive Director, Ken Keech were defamatory and that as a publicly listed company, Rex could not let the comments go unchallenged.
“Mr Keech should either substantiate such statements with specific evidence or unreservedly withdraw the statement and apologise,” Mr Breust said.
“Rex has a policy of working in partnership with the 25 regional destinations around our network to develop air services to those communities. Many of those airports, which are owned and operated by local government bodies, have entered into very successful partnerships with Rex and have achieved tremendous growth in passenger numbers and in frequency and quality of service.
“The partnership approach is a co investment by both the local council and Rex to bring affordable fares to travellers. For every dollar that the local council contributes in the form of reduced head tax, Rex contributes at least as much, generally more so that the overall entry level fare is reduced substantially. This results in more passenger throughput and, at the end of the day, increased revenue for the airport and the airline overall. Over time this is clearly a win for all parties – the airport, the local community, travellers and the airline.
“Passenger head tax revenue collected by the local councils over the terms of the partnerships has increased substantially despite the reduction in unit head tax rates. Rex therefore takes great exception to the remarks by Mr Keech which are not only defamatory to Rex but I am sure highly offensive to the numerous local councils which have benefited from these arrangements.”
Mr Breust said that Mr Keech would do well to examine the conduct of some of the AAA’s members, who are all monopolistic owners of vital infrastructure, most of which was handed over to local councils free of charge by the federal government.
“Unfortunately, too many regional airports simply add on the CPI or more increase every year to the head tax on the back of 20% or more increases in revenue collections. They adopt a cost plus approach with no regard to the impact on fares paid by travellers. In some cases they do not understand how fragile regional aviation is and how critical air services are to the economic and social fibre of their local community,” Mr Breust added.
Mr Breust called on the AAA to join Rex in its efforts in promoting sustainable long term growth of regional air travel instead of making baseless comments.
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