Orange councillors including Reg Kidd have criticised Regional Express (Rex) Airlines saying its service is unreliable.

“It makes it difficult for business if you’ve got an appointment in Sydney or Orange or connecting flights interstate or overseas,” he said.

“No-one’s questioning the safety but there just seems to be more incidents of flights not being on time or cancelled on this route than on others.”

Cr Kidd said the costs of the flights were also a turnoff with many potential passengers choosing to drive instead.

“You can get cheaper fares but you have to book a month ahead,” he said.

“It’s getting beyond the grasp of a normal person.”

Central West Business Chamber regional manager Paul Cox agreed, saying he had experienced difficulty booking flights firsthand.

“I would’ve liked to have got a seat on Friday but I had to stay overnight in Sydney because I couldn’t get a connection through,” he said.

He said many business people find it cheaper and more reliable to drive and stay overnight for meetings.

“There certainly needs to be an overhaul,” he said.

“[The addition of more flights] doesn’t appear to have helped.

“You might be lucky to get a seat but you’ll be paying a premium.”

A Rex spokeswoman said recent flight disruptions have not been isolated to Orange and are viewed as a short term problem by the airline.

“Rex has consistently had the lowest number of flight cancellations across Australia [according to Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics statistics],” she said.

“For the past two years [Rex] also had the best on time performance.”

The spokeswoman said a high amount of sick leave combined with pilots on annual leave had caused crew shortages.

“In cases where flights may be disrupted, we combine flights as early as possible, so that passengers are not stranded by flight cancellations but there have been isolated last minute crew shortages which have impacted some of our services,” she said.

Cr Kidd said Rex should look at its service obligation especially when it had many guaranteed bookings from the health and mining industry.

“They have an airline route that’s very lucrative, there’s no doubt about that because they’ve put more flights on,” he said.

The Rex spokeswoman confirmed the airline had increased the number of weekday flights between Orange and Sydney from four return flights to five return flights.

Cr Kidd said he hoped the $13.9 million expansion planned for the airport, including a longer runway, will encourage larger planes to use the facility making more seats available.

A second airline, also on the council’s wish list, would improve the situation putting pressure on Rex to make flights more competitive, he said.

Mr Cox agreed.

“It costs more to fly from Orange to Sydney than to fly from Sydney to Brisbane, that doesn’t seem right,” he said.

Cr Chris Gryllis said the airport was being used to its capacity and the expansion would benefit other users besides Rex.

clare.colley@ruralpress.com