Albury to Sydney Airline Comparisons

With the arrival of my flight in to Sydney I felt I was able to do a comparison of the three flight options from Albury to Sydney. I'd flown VirginBlue about a month earlier to Sydney with a Rex flight back, so with my April holiday flight it meant all three were fresh in my mind.

Regional Express (Rex)

• Rex has the benefit of flying small propeller planes that actually feel like you're really flying. They are also the only carrier to fly out of Albury to Melbourne (Brindabella flies to Canberra from Albury, but nowhere else).
  

• As smaller flights with a 2-1 configuration it means it is good for couples to get two seats together but also good for single travellers (as I usually am) to sit without a stranger beside you. Seats on the plane also felt the most cramped out of the three carriers.
  

• Refresments are minimal, with it basically being a tea/coffee service with a small packet of something to nibble on. I can't even remember if softdrink was available or not.

• The noise inside the plane is the biggest disadvantage of flying Rex. Admittedly I was mentally drained before my flight, but I had a headache working up to become moderately painful by the time my flight arrived.

• Bording the plane is straight forward in Albury, but in Sydney it is a very odd gate arranagement which I discovered on a flight last year when it reached the stage of my name being called out of the PA system because I was sitting upstairs in the seats there rather than downstairs at the gates you actually head out through.
  

• Overall Rating: 3 stars.

Virgin Blue

• The larger plane that Virgin Blue flies between Albury and Sydney helps make them the quietest of the three options.

• There are no refreshments onboard VirginBlue unless you purchase them, but for a one hour flight that isn't really a concern.

• Seating space felt larger on this flight than either Qantas or Rex and wins easily on the comfort count. An oddity was that premium seats are available at the front of the plane yet I've never seen them being used. A check in option of $10 or $20 extra to try them out would have been very tempting and saved the seats going to waste - unless you were a seven foot tall basketballer there is little incentive to pay the much greater cost for the premium seats when only flying for an hour.

• Overall Rating: 3 1/2 stars. The flight is a bit quicker and comfort better than the alternatives. Cheap fares are also sometimes available.
  

Qantas

• Qantas is my preferred option because I really enjoy the feeling of being on a prop plane (as opposed to the jet that VirginBlue flies) and I'm working on QFF points/status credits currently.

• The refreshments are marginally better than Rex provides - though nothing like those which I used to enjoy on the Narrabri-Moree-Sydney Qantaslink flight - they really did make you feel well looked after (especially in the evening flights when you sometimes were offered three rounds of wine).

• Check in is quite pleasant, though for some reason the Qantas tickets specify 45 minutes before departure. Fortunately I had completed online check in and fortunately they accepted my luggage at closer to 30 minutes before departure than 45.

• Seats seemed a little less spacious than on the VirginBlue flight but better than the Rex. Noise was also in the middle of the alternative carriers, I do wonder if I'm growing more sensitive to it or whether it is just the comparison with the larger jet that makes it feel more substantial.

• Overall Rating: 3 1/2 . A little less spacious than VirginBlue and with moderate cabin noise, its basic refreshments all combine to keep it from being a 4 star service.