Tiger Flight Cancellation In Tasmania

[Adrian B]

Looks like an interesting issue over the weekend.

Federal police guard Tiger Airlines staff after passengers told they would be stranded in Hobart for three days

A TIGER Airways passenger has told of his and other passengers' frustration after they were stranded in Hobart for three days due to a flight cancellation.

Police guarded Tiger Airways staff while they announced to a crowd of angry passengers they would be stranded in Hobart for three days on Friday night.

Passenger Mike Walters said he and his wife were effectively abandoned after the cancellation.

“We were isolated in a hotel at Cambridge airport some 17 kilometres from Hobart without any local shops or supplies,” Mr Walters said.

Mr Walters said he forked out for a flight back to Melbourne yesterday on Virgin Blue because he could not wait until today, particularly as he had run out of medication.

“To add to our irritation we had to pay for alternative accommodation, transport, interstate telephone calls to family and the Tiger call centre and meals out of our own pocket with the promise of an unspecified refund in two months' time,” Mr Walters said.

“We know of other passengers on our flight who missed interstate connections to family weddings, including one best man.

“We were also unable to meet our soon to be daughter in law from Singapore, as we had planned to meet her flight at Tullamarine that same evening to welcome her and drive her home.”

Flight TT567 out of Hobart was cancelled after a flight attendant became ill, and no replacement staff were available.

A passenger who was to return to Melbourne on that flight said federal police arrived at the terminal about 9.30pm on Friday night before the announcement was delayed.

Passengers stranded in Hobart are due to arrive in Melbourne tonight.

Tiger Airways has been contacted for comment and will be issuing a statement shortly.

[Adam.S]

I can understand an overnight delay whereby a LCC airline could not have 'spare' aircraft or staff available, however a 3-day delay?!?
How?

[Ryan K]

Simple, don't fly them.

[Kain C]

How?

HBA-MEL is one of the fastest growing routes in Australia, and has fewer available seats than at the corresponding time last year. Hence load factors are very high. So it then takes 3 or 4 days to find 180 spare seats to put people on.

[Stephen B]

It would be good to hear what Tiger has to say about this incident. Though from the article below I wonder why they couldn't send another crew person down, even on another airline.

However, hypothetically speaking of course, after 24 hours (or preferably much less) any airline should either find an aircraft somewhere in their fleet, or put you on another airline, even if they have to charter another airline's aircraft.

[Adam G]

You get what you pay for.

Tiger has terminators in MEL every night, surely they could have sent one down to HBA & just delayed the flight by a few hours - there's no curfew issues.

Every airline has Mid Duty Sickness - I've never seen another domestic airline have to delay a flight by 3 days due to one though!! They either fly in a crew member or cancel the flight & reaccomidate on the same or next day.

[Stephen B]

Personaly I have never ever agreed with that "you get what you pay for" saying. That is simply wrong.

Just because you pay a lower price for something, does not in any way whatsoever imply you should get a faulty item. It may not be as shiny, taste as good or last as long, but you should always get something fit for purpose.

In this case these passengers bought a ticket to fly on a particular flight. Now yes there are many reasons why a flight may be delayed or cancelled, and the only story out so far indicates this was a safety of flight regulation issue. But apparently not one of these passengers got what they paid for.

If the whole story is true (there's a first time for everything) then the way these people were treated shows exactly what Tiger thinks of the traveling Australian public.

I'd like to hear Tiger's side of this first, but it does sound rather indefensible at this stage. It's just a shame we're so willing to keep giving patheic service a second chance in any industry.

[Arthur Boy]

What I just dont get is WHY they do this when they have to know the terrible publicity that awaits.

Journo's just feast on this stuff whether its deserved or not (in this case it pains me to say it IS deserved)......

The folk running Tiger need a large dose of commercial reality check pills!!!

Again, what on earth were Tiger management thinking???

Time Mr Davis had a first hand look methinks!! If not.......then they will wallow in the mire they have created for themselves......c'mon, as suggested by others above, there WERE OPTIONS it seems.

Shhhhheeeeeeshh!!!

[D Chan]

This is the danger when people fly with an airline that only has limited numbers of service per day on the route and they don't offload pax to other carriers.

One has to ponder whether it was worthwhile to pay the pax to fly on other carriers (to make sure they get to their destination on time) instead of gambling on the risks of having the pax put up with the inconvenience while at the same time having the media beat up the story and creating negative publicity across Australia.

[Greg McDonald]

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