It’s been almost 18 months since the first signs of trouble at Regional Express began to appear. The airline, which emerged in 2002 out of the collapse of Ansett, had defied expectations and flourished even as other competitors to Qantas and Virgin Australia fell by the wayside.
It was the quiet exit of a director appointed by the company’s biggest backer, private equity giant PAG Asia Capital, that suggested there were problems. That was April last year. Things deteriorated quickly. By July, the airline better known as Rex was facing a full-blown board crisis…