Regional Express Holdings Ltd (Rex) announced a $10.7 million Profit Before Tax (PBT) for the financial year ended 30 June 2014.
Although down by 45% from the previous year, the result is slightly improved from the predicted 59.8% drop reported half year.
Rex executive chairman Lim Kim Hai said commented that the Australian economy continued to deteriorate in the period under review, resulting in 38,000 fewer Rex passengers while average fuel prices were high.
“On top of that, we had the burden of increased government taxes in the form of the carbon tax and a significant increase in the fuel levy to fund the Civil Aviation Safety Authority,” Lim added.
Lim earlier warned the Federal Government that aviation in Australia is in deep crisis, with Qantas and Virgin Australia losing a combined $4.4 billion at pre-tax level for year-end 2014.
Noting that regional aviation was harder hit, with two carriers collapse in the last nine months, Lim said "the environment is so toxic that incredible as it sounds, Rex is not only the most profitable passenger airline group for the third consecutive year, it has more accumulated PBT than Qantas or Virgin Australia over the last nine years."
The executive chairman is calling on the Abbott government to urgently start implementing the concrete initiatives promised in the Coalition’s Policy for Aviation issued in August 2013 prior to the federal election one year ago.
"This clearly demonstrates the prolonged and endemic crisis that is gripping Australian aviation, and the repeal of the carbon tax alone will not be sufficient to avoid the irreversible damage done to aviation, especially to regional aviation.”
Since September 2011, 16 carriers have collapsed , some of them with decades of history:
Horizon Airlines (2004), Great Western Airlines (2005), Airlines of South Australia (2005),
Emu Airways (2005), Aboriginal Air Services (2006), Sunshine Express (2006), Big Sky
Express (2006), Transair (2006), O’Connor Airlines (2007), Aero-Tropics Air Services
(2008), MacAir Airlines (2009), Regional Pacific Airlines (2010), Tasair (2012), Aeropelican (2013), Brindabella Airlines (2013), Vincent Aviation (2014).
