Tiger Aust Domestic grounded

[Justin L]

Virgin have also followed Jetstar's lead.

An interesting point of difference to Jetstar is that they are also handling requests via email and phone in addition to the airport, whereas Jetstar are only using their airport service desks.

Virgin's option is perhaps better for passengers booked on flights later in the week as they have the convenience of changing and confirming their bookings ahead of going to the airport. With Jetstar, you'll still have to hope their are seats later in the week. It will be interesting to see if JQ now follow DJ's lead.

But overall, good stuff by both airlines.

[Justin L]

Interesting Andrew. Jetstar have updated their page. When I first opened the link it said that the fares were not available over Jetstar.com nor the Jetstar Telephone Reservation line, only from airport Jetsar Customer Service desks. The fares also weren't set out in a chart, they were just listed.

At any rate, even greater convenience now for affected passengers.

[Peter Agatsiotis]

Heard on Ch9 news that the engineer's union have called off strike action planned for next week. Reasonable gesture on their part not wanting to add to the chaos that will evolve.

[David Knudsen]

I've posted the latest update from Tiger's site below, just incase it changes again. Some interesting grammar in there ("reminded to not turn up to the airport"), but also interesting that they're promoting Virgin Australia's response.

Tiger's response to this, from what I've seen/heard, isn't exactly professional. They need to have supervisors and staff at the airports (news reports have been saying all the check in desks are unstaffed), there will still be people out there with no idea whats happened who are going to go to the airport. It would seem to me they're not too worried about retaining their customers' loyalty - perhaps there is a reason for that?

Statement from Tiger Airways Australia


MEDIA UPDATE STATEMENT FROM TIGER AIRWAYS AUSTRALIA – 15:00 HRS, 2 JUL 2011

Following the Civil Aviation Safety Authority of Australia's (CASA) instruction to suspend Tiger Airways Australia's domestic services until next Saturday, 9 Jul 2011, the airline's immediate focus has been on reaching passengers whose immediate travel plans have been disrupted as a result, as well as ongoing cooperation with CASA.

Tiger Airways is offering these passengers its sincere apologies and will continue to do all that we can to minimise future disruption. Those who are effected will be offered a full refund or credit for deferred travel. We urge customers with bookings within Australia between now and 6:00am on Saturday, 9 Jul 2011, to not travel to the airport.

Tiger Airways' services to and from Singapore are not affected and will continue to operate normally.

Tiger Airways continues to cooperate fully with the industry regulator and we wish to reassure the Australian public that safety has and will underpin our operations at all times.

Having mitigated immediate passenger disruption to the best of our ability, Tiger Airways' next priority is working with the safety regulator to achieve a satisfactory outcome to this investigation at the earliest opportunity, as we did with the recent Show Cause Notice. In this case Tiger Airways has taken steps to comply with the conditions required by CASA as a result of this process.

Tiger Airways has already taken steps internally to address the specific issues as well as wider safety concerns CASA has raised. We are committed to resolving these quickly and resuming our services as soon as possible. We will continue providing regular updates via our website (www.tigerairways.com) as well as through the media.

Passengers who have booked travel with Tiger this week are again reminded to not turn up to the airport.

Virgin Australia has also offered to assist effected Tiger Airways' travelers where possible over the coming week. Please see the following link for more information.

http://www.virginaustralia.com/servi...tion/index.htm



NOTE TO MEDIA – THE NEXT TIGER AIRWAYS MEDIA UPDATE WILL BE PROVIDED AT 15:00 HRS (AEST) ON SUNDAY, 3 JUL 2011. ALL FURTHER RELATED QUERIES AT THIS TIME SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO CASA.



Please note: Tiger Airways' call centre is experiencing a high volume of calls at this time but the airline has added extra agents to help field the volume of calls.

Passengers are advised to monitor the website as it will be updated regularly throughout the week with further updates.

[Matt_L]

David,

from all reports Tiger think this is a bit of a joke, ie by the responses on their website and the adamant view that they will be able to return on Saturday. CASA can apply to the court to extend this and it could quite likely be granted as I can't imagine what major changes can be done in 1 week (stand to be corrected).

FWIW, I was on a Tiger lateish night flight MEL-SYD last week and was delayed about 30-45 minutes. No announcements were made about the delay till 10 mins before the late boarding, and for the preceding 35 minutes the flightscreens said the flight was closed in the terminal and many pax on this flight were mystified as about 3 Tiger flights were using the same gate (Gate 3 in MEL) and with no staff members on hand in the terminal- it was impossible to ask! We all boarded the 320 and pax were 'rushed' onto the plane and when I mean rushed- i mean the ground crew were telling passengers to get in their seats , 'hurry up' was used to at least once to a pax I saw. I found it a bit crazy even with a delay that you would treat your pax- your valued customers like this. So just a bit of perspective on the customer service from my end

[Luke A]

I wonder if the management at Strategic Airlines are thinking in the back of their minds, ‘should we have a go at this market if Tiger wraps up’.

[Lukas M]

Tiger are not going anywhere. A internal restructure will now take place and things will move on. Some certain people have now earnt themselves a spot on the firing line.

It was people like Shelley Roberts who tried to change things for the better, and now TD is paying the price by not giving her what she demanded.

Disappointing to read reports commenting about pilot training over a few low approaches, TT as a whole has the most experienced Airbus crew in the region, if I was to fly to the end of the earth it would be with a Tiger pilot. Its the pathetic amount of resources behind the scenes that's the problem.

[Lukas M]

Absolutely, that last few incidents were just the tip of the iceberg. There are plenty of internal processes and operational problems that need to be refined.

The fleet is safe to fly, the media are giving out the wrong impression, just like they have done with Qantas over the years.

Tiger will get back on their feet again, there is going to be serious changes internally, but they will build a better brand with better people. Tiger has only really had one person in charge who was really determined to take the carrier places, she had enormous plans for Tiger here in Australia, sure those plans "cost money", but they like hell wouldn't have been in the situation they have been in.

It will take time, but TT will get there under a new leadership. The initial Management team were "moved on" and the same is about to happen.

[Jason H]

It was interesting to see the webtrak recording at the time of the latest incident. According to the investigation, the breach was at 11:05pm, which is just after they executed a go-around from runway 18 before circling around to land on 36. The lowest safe altitude was 2500ft out to 25nm south of the aerodrome. Apparently they were seen flying closer to 1500ft. As the webtrak's range was cutoff around 3500ft upwind in the go-around, I can assume that they descended below 2500ft sometime in the turning back towards to runway. That being said, the requirement for a visual approach at night is to be clear of cloud, in sight of ground or water and not below the PAPI.

It will be interesting to see the report, but it seems that the pilots descended below the PAPI either to intercept an approach path at a lower altitude, or remained low on the approach path. Either way, although it is a blatant disregard of the law and CASA have every right to ban Tiger operations in Australia, I don't think it is as dangerous and life threatening as the media make it sound.

[Mick F]

That being said, the requirement for a visual approach at night is to be clear of cloud, in sight of ground or water and not below the PAPI

It's a little bit more complex than just that, but they're some of the basic requirements.

Talking about this to a few people today, we have our doubts Tiger will remain in Australia for long once and if they get their AOC back.

Mick