Australia’s Rex grounds B737s amidst lockdowns

Rex – Regional Express (ZL, Wagga Wagga) has suspended all B737-800 operations for an unspecified period following the reimposition of COVID-related lockdowns in New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria.

In a statement, the carrier said it was forced to implement capacity “reductions in services to cities and regional communities that are affected by extensive State border closures and/or lockdowns”. It said that its routes in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania “will be either temporarily suspended or greatly reduced until the end of the State Government imposed border closures and/or lockdowns” without providing any further details concerning specific routes.

However, the carrier’s internet booking engine shows that all of its B737 routes between key Australian East Coast cities have been suspended with no restart date currently filed. Flightradar24 ADS-B data shows Rex’s last commercial B737 flight, for the time being, was operated on July 18, 2021, by VQ-REX (msn 36609).

Rex debuted B737 operations in March 2021, expanding from its niche as a regional specialist. It currently operates six B737-800s on routes between Sydney Kingsford Smith, Melbourne Tullamarine, Adelaide, Coolangatta/Gold Coast, and Canberra. Besides the six Boeing narrowbodies, the airline continues to ply a wide range of domestic routes using its fleet of one S340A, thirty S340Bs, and twenty-six S340B(Plus)es.

A third wave of COVID-19 infections in Australia has prompted the governments of New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria – the three most populous states – to impose strict lockdowns and suspend a travel bubble between Australia and New Zealand.