of service rationalisation. ATI opted to make East-West the primary operator from Devonport, while the number of Ansett services would be reduced. At Wynyard, East-West services would be withdrawn by February 1988 with Ansett to remain as the sole operator. Around this time Ansett also announced that it was withdrawing the twice-weekly F28 service to Melbourne, and F27s would resume operating all services ahead of the imminent delivery of new Fokker F50 turboprops. VH-MMO had the distinction of operating the last Ansett Fokker F27 Friendship flight from Tasmania when it operated flight AN856 Wynyard-Melbourne on 22 July 1988. 1989 was to be a year of major change for Burnie Airport. Ansett's Fokker F50 service began to be disrupted as a result of industrial action by domestic airline pilots, culminating in the mass resignation on August 24 of pilots working for the major carriers Ansett, East-West and Australian Airlines, along with air-freight provider Ipec. This threw domestic travel into chaos and saw numerous airports, including Wynyard, lose most of their services overnight. Commuter airlines stepped into the breach as best they could (see below), while Ansett was able to use its subsidiary company Kendell Airlines to temporarily operate between Melbourne, Wynyard and Devonport using a mixture of Saab 340 and Fairchild Metroliners. Kendell pilots were not members of the same union as those working for Ansett and East-West, and thus they were unaffected by the industrial action. The return of small numbers of Ansett pilots allowed limited Fokker 50 services to resume to Wynyard, but ATI announced that Ansett was withdrawing from Burnie in order for Kendell Airlines to take over operations on a permanent basis using the Saab 340. Kendell was the sole operator connecting Burnie and Melbourne Tullamarine for the first half of the 1990s, before competition returned to the route in 1995 with the introduction of services by the Qantas regional affiliate Southern Australia Airlines using DeHavilland Canada Dash 8-100 aircraft. Competition between the two airlines was disrupted by the collapse of Ansett Australia when the airline and its associated companies (including Kendell Airlines) ceased flying in the early hours of 14 September 2001. Kendell resumed limited services later in the month, with flights being temporarily routed via King Island. In August 2002, Kendell became part of the newly-formed Regional Express Airlines (Rex) and resumed flying at frequencies similar to those previously operated by Kendell, continuing to use