Australia's Cobham Regional rebrands to National Jet Express /First ERJ 190 with new paint and titles

Cobham Aviation Services Australia - Regional (Adelaide International) has confirmed its rebranding to National Jet Express (NJE) five months after the acquisition of the business by Rex - Regional Express (ZL, Wagga Wagga) sister firm Rex Freight and Charter Pty Ltd (RFC).

The NJE airline brand is over 30 years old but fell into disuse after a rebranding to Cobham Aviation Services Australia in 2009. NJE is a separate entity to the Qantas Groupwned National Jet Systems (NJS). When RFC finalized the acquisition of NJE in September 2022, the airline said it would revive the NJE brand.

Acquired by the US-based private equity firm Advent International in early 2020, Cobham Group was operating two distinct but successful businesses - a special missions arm that primarily operated surveillance flights for the Australian government, and an ad-hoc and contracted fly-in-fly-out (FIFO) charter business. In 2022, Advent sold off the special missions business to Leidos and the charter business to Regional Express who paid AUD48 million dollars (USD32.3 million) to secure an instant 10 - 15% slice of Australia's lucrative FIFO charter work.

"Rex has bold plans to grow and transform NJE to become Australia’s premier fly-in fly-out (FIFO), charter and freight operator," said a social media post.

Rex's acquisition of NJE included six E190s and eight DHC-8-Q400s. In late September, Regional Express Executive Chairman Lim Kim Hai said he would immediately be looking to lease another two Q400s to boost NJE's capacity, however, those aircraft are yet to arrive. Meanwhile, Regional Express is reportedly receiving its eighth and ninth B737-800s in 1Q 2023 for domestic passenger operations on Australia's east coast trunk routes.

Embraer 190LR (ERJ-190-100LR)/  VH-IQA

Perth (PER / YPPH) - Western Australia, Australia 

Photo: Thomas Wilson