Rex has taken delivery of another SAAB 340 turboprop, further bolstering its fleet of aircraft operating to regional and rural destinations in every State in Australia.

The 34-seat aircraft, registered VH-ZPO, arrived in Australia from the United States yesterday and will enter service once final engineering and regulatory checks have been completed.

Rex’s Chief Operating Officer, Neville Howell, said, “The aircraft’s deployment will assist in our growth strategy which has already resulted in significant capacity increases from 4 July on 11 key regional routes in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.”

“These routes include Sydney to Albury, Broken Hill, Coffs Harbour, Merimbula, Orange, Port Macquarie, and Wagga Wagga, as well as Melbourne to Mildura and Adelaide to Port Lincoln.”

“In addition, we will continue to bring our highly-coveted regional services to new destinations that have been suffering from price gouging and bad service by the incumbent monopoly operator, just as we are going to do so for Devonport, which will receive our services from 19 August.”

“At a time when the other operators are in complete disarray, with massive cancellations, many truckloads full of lost baggage and reduction of schedules, Rex continues to grow its services with outstanding reliability – the latest Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics performance results released today, show Qantas having a shocking On Time Departure rate of 58.7% compared to Rex’s 82.7%.”

Rex operates the world’s largest fleet of SAAB 340 turboprops, with VH-ZPO becoming the 61st SAAB aircraft to join the airline. Rex also operates a fleet of six Boeing 737-800NGs for its domestic airline operations.

The expansion of Rex’s SAAB fleet follows an announcement last week that it had acquired the regional services arm of Cobham Aviation Services Australia (Cobham), which operates a large FIFO business in both South Australia and Western Australia.

Rex is Australia’s largest independent regional and domestic airline operating a fleet of 61 Saab 340 and six Boeing 737-800NG aircraft to 58 destinations throughout all states in Australia. In addition to the airline Rex, the Rex Group comprises wholly owned subsidiaries Pel-Air Aviation (air freight, aeromedical and charter operator) and the two pilot academies, Australian Airline Pilot Academy in Wagga Wagga and Ballarat.