Avia Solutions Group has announced the conditional purchase of...

Avia Solutions Group has announced the conditional purchase of Skytrans Airlines based out of FNQ - see https://aviasg.com/en/media/our-news/industry-insights/avia-solutions-group-acquires-australian-airline-skytrans

While Skytrans currently has a fleet of Dash 8’s and Cessna Grand Caravan’s used for scheduled and FIFO charters, Avia are shouting that they are going to use Skytrans to spearhead a push into the Australian market, including through expanding to use jet aircraft. This presents a further crowding of the Australian FIFO space following Rex’s purchase of Cobham which presumably will put further pressure of future contract pricing.

Avia is based out of Dublin. Time will tell whether foreign owned Australian charter businesses truly understand the Australian market - Bristol Helicopters hardly made a success of Cobham while they owned it.

It does raise the question of whether a well capitalised foreign aircraft owning company would ever have a tilt at AQZ - while QAN’s 20% presumably isn’t for sale, most of the remaining 80% could presumably be picked up if an attractive price was offered.