Losing your Tigerair Virginity

It’s not often an airline gets grounded in Australia. And when one does, it is also a rare event for it to emerge from the grounding and fly again. Over the past few years, Tiger Australia has managed to achieve both, but at what cost?

Since the grounding in 2011, Tigerair has undergone a number of changes on the road back to recovery. Gone was the concept of any publicity being good publicity, taking with it that horrendous reality TV show that rarely portrayed the airline in a good light. It was time for new management and a new owner, in the form of Virgin Australia now holding 60% of the shares.

One thing that has not changed is their low fares. As a result of a recent promotion, one of our members decided it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

I flew Tiger…….. And I liked it. Thanks to a late night grabbing some of the tiger $100 flight vouchers for free it was bound to happen. I was able to book early this week an afternoon flight ex Sydney, baggage, queue jumping and still have some left over. Overall Tiger got me where I wanted with no fuss, good comfort and a lot of smiles. In fact the whole trip was very similar to JQ, the only difference was the friendly staff be it gate or on the plane.

It seems new ownership has resulted in a better experience for the customer. Rather than queuing for hours in the check in line, you can now check in online and skip the queues. You can even pay a little bit extra and board when you want to, missing the inevitable scrum when general boarding is called. But does one flight make a good sample of an airline experience given its troubled past? Many of our members find that past hard to forget.

Fair ‘nuf. Most flights are uneventful. But wait till something goes pear-shaped and then let us know what Tiger’s recovery was like.

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I’ve also flown Tiger once SYD-MEL (tullamarine) on a $19 special 4 or 5 years ago. No checked bag and not for business. My experience was great and I would do it again if the circumstances were right however I most certainly would not even think about it for a business flight nor would I for anything much longer than a short east coast hop.

As it turned out, our member once again flew Tiger recently on a return flight again with no issues. Perhaps they were lucky, and the real experience will only be had when something goes wrong, like bad weather or aircraft unserviceability? Other members are also giving tiger a go in the near future.

I’m flying home on Tiger Melbourne Adelaide after AFF 8 (Socal event in Melbourne late October). Be interesting to see how it goes.

Have you flown the new Tiger lately, or are planning to do soon, join the conversation HERE.

Staff Writers