Medical cargo refusal prompts airline policy review

UPDATE: Regional Express (REX) announced on Thursday morning it will now accept medical isotopes as freight after the airline refused to carry critical medical supplies from Perth to Albany last week.

TheAlbany Advertiser reported today that the company was reviewing its transport policies after the airline refused to carry critical medical supplies from Perth to Albany.

This morning a spokeswoman for REX confirmed the carrier would accept the radioactive medical isotope material.

“Much work has been undertaken by Rex since this matter was first brought to Rex’s attention on Friday 18 March 2016,” she said.

“All necessary amendments to the Rex Dangerous Goods Policy and other notices have been rolled out today for Rex to now be in a position to accept medical isotopes as freight for carriage in the Saab 340 aircraft.”

The airline, which began services in Albany last month, refused to accept medical isotopes cargo due to radioactive material last week.

The isotopes are used in radiation therapy for cancer patients.

A Rex spokesman said staff refused to carry the goods as they did not comply with their dangerous goods manual and policy.

“We were not made aware of any requirement to do so before commencing flights between Perth and Albany,” he said.

“Rex operates 1500 flights per week throughout Australia and has not come across the requirement to carry medical isotopes before.

“Medical isotopes are classified as dangerous goods and the company does not accept medical isotopes as freight.”

Albany MLA Peter Watson said the medical isotopes were needed “desperately” for cancer patients undergoing treatment.

“They are taking away a service which is important to a regional town,” he said.

“What the (medical) groups are doing now they are sending it down by road because they can’t afford anything like that to happen again.

“Companies like that can’t afford to not get it there the next day, so instead of getting it in an hour it’s going to be overnight now.”

Mr Watson implored the airline to look after the community and not take “short cuts”.

“The government said this is a positive for Albany, it’s a positive we’ve got an airline we’ve just got to make sure that it performs up to the expectations,” he said.

Transport Minister Dean Nalder said'''''' Rex Airlines policy review would be complete in coming days.

“Rex is reviewing its dangerous goods policy with a view to potentially transporting medical isotopes on flights into the future across its entire network,” he said.

“This process would be subject to meeting with all the requirements in the IATA Dangerous Goods Manual and including such things as staff training, consignment, packaging, labelling, segregation and incident reporting just to name a few.”