Australia finally has a 4th airline (or a 3rd if you recognise Jetstar as simply a budget offshoot of Qantas).
With just 24hrs till its maiden flight, Tiger Airlines managed to get its air operators certificate. So all the people who purchased those cheap $19 tickets will actually be able to fly it seems.
Jetstar of course attempted a competitive thump earlier this week when it offered 50 cent fares. Unfortunately it didn’t plan this particularly well and managed to meltdown its servers. Not dissimilar in fact to a quick look at their checkin desks at any airport. They are notoriously under-resourced and queues wind through the entire landside of the airport, creating problems for other airlines. Admittedly its mostly Virgin and I’m sure Qantas aren’t loosing sleep over that, but perhaps the airport operators should start to.
It will be interesting to see the impact of Tiger on the airports themselves. Another influx of bargain travellers may get this shoved in their faces as they stand in queues for an hour while they see the Qantas and Virgin passengers flowing on through at what is likely to be, by comparison, lightening speed.
But perhaps the airline and the airports will surprise us all. We can all hope.
The impact of Tiger on tourism should also be interesting to watch. The Gold Coast and FNQ have always been fairly popular for Melbourne tourists who want to escape the drizzle and winds. Adding such cheap fares, where a trip to the Gold Coast is now little more than a train fare into the City should certainly boost tourism. Whilst some might suggest that because its budget travellers the impact will be at the lower end of the market but this is not necessarily true. People who secure cheaper airfares often use their savings to spend at the destination and upgrade their accommodation. And certainly for the smaller airports involved in Queensland it opens the possibility of a real boon.
It will be interesting to watch how Tiger fares. With the backing of Singapore Airlines they certainly have the potential to weather the storm of whatever the bigger boys may throw at them. Whether or not Singapore Airlines will be prepared to carry that shorter/medium term cost though is still very much in the air.
