The State's Transport Minister has defended Rex Airlines in the wake of an onslaught of recent criticisms by its regional passengers, with some labelling the airline as unreliable after facing significant delays and flight cancellations.
Following a recent, independent assessment of the airline, which formed part of a tender process by the State government, Rita Saffioti said Rex Airlines was "not the worst" in terms of its cancellation and on-time performance rates compared to other airlines operating in WA.
Speaking on the issue in parliament last week, she said in some case its on time-performance and cancellation rates were a lot lower than others.
The government recently awarded Rex with a five-year contract, giving the airline exclusive rights to operate on select regional Western Australian routes which are fully regulated by the government.
These include services between Perth and Albany, Esperance, Carnarvon and Monkey Mia.
Ms Saffioti said issues with cancellations and on-time performance of the airline were often exacerbated due to the company servicing areas where there is "only one flight, aircraft or service offered".
"I will say, the problem in these ports is it's the only service, so people feel the impact of any cancellation because there are no other services," Ms Saffioti said.
Highlighting that Rex had been the only airline to tender its services for some of the State's regional routes, Ms Saffioti said, "We can have either no service or this service".
Due to mounting concerns within the community around the airline's recent performance, particularly in the Albany and Esperance region, Ms Saffioti said she had spoken with the airline's manager and requested the company improve its communication with its passengers when a cancellation or "performance issue" occurred.
"I have spoken to the managing director and I understand that senior executives will be coming to WA in the next two weeks to inform themselves better about how they should communicate," Ms Saffioti said.
To help improve the airline's capacity and contingency plans, over the past six months the company has purchased a fly-in, fly-out charter, as well as another charter to help expand capacity for the Perth to Carnarvon service.
Rex has also hired 60 additional pilots, according to Ms Saffioti, who said the airline would be giving priority to WA services ahead of the company's services over those in the Eastern States.
"I will say that Rex's performance is in line with the market, and I am not about to basically cut from WA an airline that sometimes is the only airline willing to service some of our communities," Ms Saffioti said.
"I am actually disappointed in people wanting to attack an airline that, honestly, was the easiest to deal with during COVID...it kept going.
"I remember during COVID, when every other airline said that they would not fly in WA, one airline stood by WA and kept going."
