A plane full of Rex passengers has landed in Hobart after a delay of more than 8 hours today.
What was supposed to be a short hour-long hop across the Bass Strait turned into an afternoon nightmare for those flying on RXA961 on Tuesday.
The flight took off from Melbourne 8 hours and 15 minutes later than the scheduled 12pm departure, only arriving in Hobart shortly after 9pm.
The return flight RXA962 was also impacted, with its originally planned 2:10pm departure time pushed back to after 10pm.
Passengers on board the flight told Pulse that it had been an ‘exhaustingly long day’, with many left waiting at the gate in Melbourne becoming ‘more and more frustrated’ after each announcement made by airline staff.
It is understood that a new aircraft had to be made available to complete the trip, which only became possible later in the evening.
Rex introduced the route between Hobart and Melbourne in August, aiming to increase capacity and enhance price competitiveness among the other major players in the market.
In September, Rex was named Australia’s most reliable airline, which the company said placed them “a country mile in front of all other carriers”.
In a statement, Rex apologised for the delays which were due to a “combination of factors beyond the airline’s control”.
“These included an engineering issue which took longer than expected to rectify and weather conditions earlier in the day at Adelaide which had an impact on our ability to utilise an alternate aircraft,” a spokesperson said.
“Passengers were updated as soon as information became available and were provided with meal vouchers during the rolling delay.”
