Rex (Regional Express)

Is Rex safe to fly?

Yes. Rex has flown Australia's regional routes since 2002 without a fatal accident, and it is overseen by one of the stricter aviation regulators in the world. Its one serious accident was a freighter fire in 2023 with only the two pilots on board. We score it 78. The catch is the fleet. Rex flies nothing but Saab 340s, a 34-seat turboprop that has been out of production for decades. In March 2026, after the airline's 2024 collapse, about 24 of its 57 aircraft were still parked, waiting for heavy maintenance or engine overhauls.

What happened to Rex in 2024 and 2025?

Rex went into voluntary administration on 30 July 2024. Its Boeing 737 flights between capital cities stopped, and the regional Saab network kept flying. The administrators, EY, sold the company to Air T, a US group that also flies FedEx feeder aircraft, and the deal closed on 18 December 2025.

The new owner and the Australian government are now paying to bring the parked Saabs back. Air T set up an AUD 50 million credit line and the Commonwealth a further AUD 60 million loan for overhauls, and Rex promised to keep minimum numbers of aircraft flying for ten years. In March 2026 about 33 Saabs were in line service. The goal is 45 within two years of the sale.

Money trouble is not a safety finding on its own, and we found no CASA enforcement action against Rex. But an airline short of engines and parts has less room for error.

The 2017 propeller loss and other incidents

The most serious event with passengers on board in the last ten years happened on 17 March 2017. Flight RXA768 from Albury to Sydney, with 16 passengers and three crew, saw strange readings from the right engine, then growing vibration. As the crew shut the engine down, the propeller broke away and fell into forest south-west of Sydney. The aircraft landed normally.

The ATSB found a fatigue crack in the propeller gearbox shaft. The manufacturer's manuals had no specific inspection for that crack, and Rex's own inspection worksheets did not record findings in the way its procedures required. General Electric then ordered inspections of the shaft on every engine of the type.

Most later events point to procedures, not hardware:

• Perth, July 2021. After a de-icing fault, the aircraft lost speed in a turn on autopilot until the stick shaker warned of a stall. The ATSB found the pilot flying was overloaded and neither pilot watched the airspeed. A similar stall warning on approach to Merimbula in June 2023 followed a power reduction in turbulence.
• Wellcamp, October 2021. The crew broadcast a wrong position at an airport without a tower, a King Air entered the circuit the wrong way, and the two aircraft came within about 300 ft and half a nautical mile before a collision-avoidance alert sorted them out.
• Melbourne, April 2022. A ground worker unplugged the ground power while a Saab was still starting its left engine. The crew's attempt to clear fuel from the engine led to a tailpipe fire, the crew and the marshaller could not talk to each other, and the evacuation was disorganised; some passengers took their bags. Two passengers had minor injuries. Rex brought in a new hand signal and more training.
• Adelaide, October 2025. The crew rejected a take-off at about 105 knots when the left engine failed. The ATSB opened an investigation that was still listed as under way when we checked.
• Townsville, November 2025. With 15 passengers on board, a Saab turned off the departure route when the autopilot engaged, because of bad data in the flight management system. The ATSB found Rex procedures did not require crews to check the programmed route after engine start.

Smaller events include a de-icing boot that came loose at Esperance in 2018 and engine shutdowns in flight near Broken Hill (October 2025) and Parkes (February 2026). We score incidents at 68: nobody was badly hurt, but the ATSB keeps finding gaps in crew monitoring, procedures and maintenance records.

Rex and Pel-Air

Rex owned Pel-Air, an air ambulance, freight and charter operator, from the mid-2000s until it agreed to sell the company to Toll in October 2024. The two companies shared Saab 340s and could roster each other's crews, so it matters who flew what.

The Cobar fire of 23 April 2023 counts against Rex. The Saab 340A freighter belonged to Pel-Air, but two Rex pilots flew it as RXA9982, on a non-revenue freight flight from Wagga Wagga to Charleville, and the ATSB names Regional Express as the operator. A fan under the cabin floor failed and started a fire. Smoke filled the cockpit because the smoke curtain was not fitted and the flight deck door was open, and the pilots, used to passenger Saabs, could not find a valve handle that only the freighter has. They landed at Cobar and got out unhurt. The ATSB found that Rex had not trained its crews on the differences between passenger and freight Saabs; Rex has since added the freighter systems to its manuals and ground school.

Pel-Air's own events do not count here, because they ran on Pel-Air's certificate with Pel-Air crews. The best known came in November 2009, when a Pel-Air Westwind air ambulance ditched off Norfolk Island; all six people on board were rescued. On 4 November 2022 a Pel-Air Saab 340B on a charter tour with 25 passengers rejected its take-off at Flinders Island because the parking brake had not been fully released, and all main-wheel tyres deflated. Nobody was hurt, and the ATSB's final report names Pel-Air as the operator.

Who checks Rex?

Rex holds an air operator's certificate from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), and Australia is in the FAA's Category 1FAA IASAThe US FAA's check of whether a country's aviation regulator meets ICAO standards. Category 1 means it does; Category 2 means it does not.More in the glossary. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigates even minor events and publishes its reports. Rex was not on IATA's IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary registry when we searched it on 28 October 2026, so we score oversight at 88, four points below Qantas and Virgin Australia.

Flying Rex: what to know

• Listen to the cabin crew, not your instincts, in an evacuation. The 2022 Melbourne report found passengers carrying bags off a burning aircraft. On a small turboprop the exits are close, and a bag in the aisle slows everyone.
• Expect a small aircraft in rough air. Saabs fly lower than jets, through inland Australia's summer storms. Keep your belt fastened whenever you are seated.
• Allow for cancellations. With part of the fleet still in overhaul, a broken aircraft can mean a long wait at a small airport. Book the morning flight when you have a connection to make.

How we scored it

The accident record (90) and CASA oversight (88) carry the score. The fleet (45) pulls it down hardest: one old type, many aircraft parked, and parts that will only get harder to find. The regional environment (74) and incidents (68) sit in between. For a bigger Australian airline with turboprops, compare Qantas at 89, whose QantasLink arm flies many of the same routes.