Issue 309: Critical Link

Undeterred by politics, the regional sector demonstrates resolve and optimism

It has been a long exercise in impatience for the executive chairman of Regional Express, Lim Kim Hai, who in late August launched another caustic attack on the (then) federal government for its policies that he said had been damaging the regional airline industry.

Lim’s is not a lone tale. It is just that he often says – loudly – what others in the industry have been thinking, but with a degree of vigour that belies the more often softly-spoken voices of an industry that has been in a cycle of apparent decay as regulation, cost – and government policies – gnaw away at its crucial role in the rural social framework.