Police called in to guard Tiger staff after cancellation

[crazydave98]

Must be about the furthest ahead Tiger have ever planned....they had police guarding the counter when breaking the news that the flight was delayed for three days.

Police called in after Tiger passengers left stranded

 

[Mrmaxwell]

This blows my mind that Tiger made PAX wait 3 days for another service from HBA to MELB...obviously they knew what kind of response they would get by calling in Police ahead of the announcement! If I was told sorry the next flight will be in 3 days I would just book on another airline and never fly Tiger again.

How can the airline survive with PR like this?

And this:

"Another angry passenger told The Age that police were called in to calm about 100 Tiger Airways passengers left waiting more than five hours at Sydney Airport yesterday.

The passenger said about 100 Melbourne-bound passengers became irate when Tiger staff could not explain the reason for their delayed flight which was due to take off just before 4pm.

He said airport security and police arrived to calm the quell the rising tension as passengers demanded answers"

I've flown Tiger twice and while I had no issue with the on board service or plane itself, both flights were about an hr late with no announcements whatsoever - luckily I didn't have to be anywhere on time as I was flying on the weekend...

 

[Natt]

Gosh

on the odd occasions I have flown tiger I never expect them to be on time and always have a day spare either side.

But 3 days - sheesh!

 

[MelUser]

I know this is harsh but in my view anyone on Tiger knows what they are getting and should expect the worst!

 

[trooper]

Sounds like reading about Ryanair... except that their level of passenger care probably indicates their level of care for employees... so I doubt they'd spend the money on a phone call to Police...

 

[harvyk]

How can the airline survive with PR like this?

$9 fares...

All the time there are airlines out there that offer flights for less than the cost of a take-away store dinner, there will be people who chose to fly them, regardless of the bad PR...

My personal opinion is that TT should be forced to provide better assistance to pax it strands somewhere, including but not limited to placing the pax on an alternate carriers, paying upfront (none of this claim back 3 months later) for hotels and food or other assistance which the pax may require, if TT has to cancel a flight (their fault) and can not move the pax onto another TT flight within a reasonable period of time. I'm a little tired of LCC's like TT hiding behide T&C's when they screw up major...

 

[straitman]

Tiger have, in my opinion degenerated from a poor LCC to a joke :!:

 

[Mr Ed]

I would have turned that situation into a positive. I would have immediately hired a car, driven to Devonport whilst enjoying all the top places on the way, popped myself onto one of the TT liners (for the great unwashed, that's the Spirit of Tasmania 1 or 2) and thoroughly enjoyed the long way home.

 

[cmon0005]

Just another reason that I am a happy QF flyer! I wouldn't ever fly tiger.. even if it meant saving money, its not worth it.

 

[dajop]

I wonder what the real story is. Certainly everyone wasn't made to wait three days, who knows maybe some HBA based pax were offered something, or were OK with the extra wait....

The spokeswoman said some of the 140 passengers had been able to re-book on flights leaving Saturday and Sunday but some were unable to fly until today.

Again (feel like a broken record here), it's important to remember that Tiger are the Ryanair of Australia. That's what happens when people buy $9 fares - it doesn't buy an insurance policy against these things happening, you need to buy that separately (although insurance may not cover this anyway). On that note, surely there must be a buck in it for insurance companies to start capitalising on all this Tiger bad news, the statistics on these things wouldn't be too difficult to work out, and the news of these situations would help the marketing no end ...

Even if they weren't an ULCC, their fleet size is so small that they will struggle when cough happens, especially given they only have a single daily between HBA/MEL, and it's the last flight out of HBA of an evening - on any carrier. (TT leaves HBA 50 mins after the last flight on other carriers), so putting pax on another carrier just simply cannot happen, and if you try and find other aircraft/crew to recover the situation you're only going to disrupt other pax on other routes. At least this time they came through with $120 for accomodation.

I'm actually waiting for the day some of the Ryanair-esque things happen, like flying MEL-SYD pax as far as CBR and telling them to make their own way to SYD. If you read the Ryanair comments on Airline quality there seems to be a few instances of dumping pax in airports 3 hours drive away and telling them to make their own way to the final destination.

 

[harvyk]

Again (feel like a broken record here), it's important to remember that Tiger are the Ryanair of Australia. That's what happens when people buy $9 fares - it doesn't buy an insurance policy against these things happening, you need to buy that separately (although insurance may not cover this anyway).

You comment about the higher level of fares being an insurance policy I personally believe is meaningless. It doesn't matter if you purchase a $9 fare or a $10,000 fare. You have a contract with the airline to get you from point A to point B. The airline has said they will provide a service and given you specific times for this service to take place.

Now yes certain events outside the airlines control may prevent this service from taking place at the originally agreed time, however that should not allow tiger to say "we'll provide the service when we feel like it". It should be a case of the airline is forced to provide the service within a reasonable timeframe.

A 3 days wait for a short domestic flight is not normally considered a reasonable timeframe.

Saying that "we're not the worst - there are other airlines out there that are worse than us" is not a good marketing strategy.

 

[Jeffrey O'Neill]

I'd like to see some complaints made to the ACCC or some local state based consumer affiars departments.

My way of thinking is if an airline creates a schedule and then wont fly a plane due to poor loadings, it's a bit like advertising an item for sale but not really having the stock to sell.

I've been lucky enuff to not have any flight changes impact me too severly, but the budget airliness need to start thinking of the customer as just as important as what the bean counters are telling them.

 

[odysseus]

Must be about the furthest ahead Tiger have ever planned....they had police guarding the counter when breaking the news that the flight was delayed for three days.

So why are we taxpayers paying for Tiger to manage their business model?

Surely, if they want to get security to protect themselves, they should be paying for security?

 

[fortymilliondaggers]

So why are we taxpayers paying for Tiger to manage their business model?

Surely, if they want to get security to protect themselves, they should be paying for security?

Put yourself in the shoes of the employees: it's not them who decides how things are run. Not everyone 'won't shoot the messenger'. And we don't know the circumstances in which the cops were called in.

In any case, if an employee called I think it's perfectly reasonble for them to turn up.

 

[dajop]

A 3 days wait for a short domestic flight is not normally considered a reasonable timeframe.

As I said, do we know the full story, about how those who had to wait up to three days were selected, or what choices were made by either the airline or the pax that led that decision? All we heard from in the report was a single disgruntled pax who had to spend a night in HBA and submit expenses for reimbursement that would be paid in 2 months (as I suspect Tiger pay all their creditors...)

On AFF there are many that accuse the media of presenting selective information about Qantas, and are ready to start bashing "nonews" etc for such (me included), but when the media starts on Tiger, everyone just joins in the chorus - I am convinced we don't always hear the full story - just the sensational bits that will sell newspapers. Three or four years ago this is exactly the sort of things that were being written about Jetstar as well, but I guess the media is now bored with that and Jetstar have grown to have a sizeable fleet (and have become more adept at managing their problems).

 

[dajop]

My way of thinking is if an airline creates a schedule and then wont fly a plane due to poor loadings, it's a bit like advertising an item for sale but not really having the stock to sell.
.

140 passengers out of 180 is hardly a poor loading - I am sure no airline would cancel a plane operating at 77% load factor because of "poor loadings". Perhaps your post belongs in another thread on MEL-SYD cancellations?

 

[harvyk]

On AFF there are many that accuse the media of presenting selective information about Qantas, and are ready to start bashing "nonews" etc for such (me included), but when the media starts on Tiger, everyone just joins in the chorus.

I guess that's the problem, when nonews start talking BS on QF given most people here have flown QF oftan multiple times, we can spot the BS very quickly. With TT however I dare say most people here haven't flown TT, thus if nonews make stuff up we don't know if they are telling the truth or not.

That said, there have been numerious other cases of TT leaving pax in the lurch and not caring about it (sometimes the pax fault, othertime TT's fault), reported in places other than "nonews". That said I also believe that screwing the pax over is part and parcel of a ULCC, as everything is done to a price, and if the pax can get $9 fares they will usually put up with such stuff.

 

[bambbbam2]

It's a funny thing about delays.. I know they happen and if informed, people will generally be quite forgiving. After all, safety is paramount.

It only takes a moment to let people know the reason behind a delay, and indeed letting people know does nothing really to speed up the fix. However if pepole are left in the dark, they tend to get angry very quicly.

 

[straitman]

It's a funny thing about delays.. I know they happen and if informed, people will generally be quite forgiving. After all, safety is paramount.

It only takes a moment to let people know the reason behind a delay, and indeed letting people know does nothing really to speed up the fix. However if pepole are left in the dark, they tend to get angry very quicly.

Agreed entirely.

It seems to me that many of the issues with Tiger could be sorted to a significant degree by increasing communication. Firstly between the employees so they know what is going on and then passing appropriate information on to the general public.

 

[Nigelinoz]

My way of thinking is if an airline creates a schedule and then wont fly a plane due to poor loadings, it's a bit like advertising an item for sale but not really having the stock to sell.

I thought the problem was caused by crew illness?