Airline adds new route in Tassie

ALBURY’S loss is Devonport’s gain with a regional airline ditching the marginal NSW route to start flying into the Tasmanian city instead.

Rex has announced it will start flying between Melbourne and Devonport – the airline’s third Tasmanian destination – in August.

The airline said its Albury Melbourne service was grounded at the end of May because it only attracted 22,000 passengers annually – even before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rex’s Deputy Chairman John Sharp said the airline had been courted by the North West Tasmanian community for more than two years.

Qantas operates the only Devonport to Melbourne flight and the introduction of a new Rex service will bump up competition.

“We did not respond earlier to the pleas of the community as we had limited resources then and we wanted to give priority to our existing network,” Mr Sharp said.

“Qantas’ predatory attacks on Rex’s network means that we no longer can support the marginal routes and we need to channel our resources to the biggest regional routes where the financial returns are much better.

“The economics are evident and we believe we’ll be carrying more than twice the number of passengers to Devonport than we did to Albury with the same amount of resources deployed.

“We will be ramping up significantly our services in the biggest regional routes and at the start of the new financial year our regional capacity will be higher than pre-Covid levels.”

More details about the new Melbourne-Devonport flights, including special launch fares, will be released when tickets go on sale before the end of the month.