Tiger Flight Cancellation In Tasmania

[Ash W]

Ryanair also works on the any publicity is good publicity theory.

But seriously what the hell happened here? Did the aircraft end up flying to Melbourne empty because of the sick crew member or did it stay? If it stayed there is no reason why the whole plane load of people couldn't have been taken the next day. If it flew empty then I can understand the delay, but yet again Tiger could and should have handled the situtation much better.

[Rhys Xanthis]

Originally Posted by Greg McDonald

I'm very sure that this airline works on the theory that 'any publicity is good publicity'.

The show they run on Channel 7 is testament to this.

[Mike W]

Tigers entry to Aus is almost as bad as Jetstar's is into NZ

[chrisb]

I wonder if Tiger's performance will eventually cause the government to introduce laws forcing carriers to treat pax better.

For me a 6 hour delay should automatically trigger meals, accommodation and transfer onto the first available flight on any carrier.

Yes, it'll be met by cries of increased costs but at some point there has to be protection for the customer. Telling customers they have a 3 day delay is just being ridiculous.

[Marty H]

Like all airlines Tiger would have operated a reduced scheduale on Saturday, so there is no reason they could not have handled this better, even ops the aircraft with max pax for the cabin crew on board and overnighted the remining pax and put them on other carriers the following day, a three day delay is just a joke.

[Adam.S]

^
Exactly. As I said earlier, I can understand, this incident would cause an overnight delay. However for it to last more then 24 hours is dumbfounding.
Why couldn't Tiger look up their scheduled passenger numbers for the following days flights (eg. on their MEL-SYD route) and pick the flight which had the least number of passengers and cancel that flight.
Use the aircraft and crew off the cancelled flight and take it to Hobart.
Crew hours wouldn't be an issue as Melbourne - Hobart is less then MEL-SYD.

The fact that there is not an industry wide 'back up plan' for these sorts of delays on the low cost carriers is a problem.

Any income Tiger would have made on this flight (at the time of cancellation) should have been put to paying the other airlines a form of compensation to take the stranded passengers to their destination.

[Debra Rettie]

Does not surprise me with Tiger Airways at all. My sister flew with them earlier this year Melbourne-Sydney-Melbourne and coming up was fine, except going back was terrible. Plane was delayed 1.5 hours with no reason given at all, which meant when she arrived into Tullamarine she missed the shuttle to Moorabbin. She then had to get the skybus (the shuttle had already been paid for) into Southern Cross and get a taxi from there. Meant instead of getting home at a civilised hour she did not get home till 1.30am. She swears she will not fly with them again.

Tiger terminal in Melbourne is so far away from the main one

[Mark T]

I am led to believe that the problem was greater than HBA-MEL as MEL-SYD flights were also cancelled and there a lot of people stranded in Melbourne on Sunday night as well. A shortage of staff or aircraft??

Cheers
M

[Kelvin R]

From a technical perspective what is the min number of crew Tiger could have flown with while having some PAX in the cabin? Is it based on number of seats or number of PAX?

[Gareth U]

Broadly speaking, in Australia the min number of cabin crew is based on the number of pax (1 cabin crew for 36 pax), HOWEVER...

Each aircraft will also have a minimum number of cabin crew, determined by CASA, taking into account the cabin and exit configuration. For a 320 to carry ONE pax it must have FOUR cabin crew. To carry 180 pax (max pax in both Tiger config and what the aircraft is certified to carry) it would need five cabin crew (5*36=180) or 144 with four cabin crew(4*36=144), in keeping with the 1:36 ratio. However, CASA have given a dispensation to Tiger (and separately, Jetstar) to operate their 320s at max pax with four cabin crew.

This means that when one cabin crew goes sick into a remote port the airlines start to run into trouble.

That aircraft could not have left HBA with passengers without an extra cabin crew member to make up the minimum - four.