Tiger Airways Domestic flight

[medhead]

Background

In celebration of making platinum for the first time I thought I'd try Tiger Airways. As background I currently work in Sydney and fly there each week from Adelaide. This Fly in, Fly out arrangement is rather convenient. I also work a compressed week, which means only 4 days in Sydney usually Monday to Thursday. This arrangement also means regular flights, involving the 6am ADL-SYD on Qantas or Virgin Blue and a return on Thursday night.

The Thursday night flight is difficult. Working a compressed week means a nominal 10 hours a day meaning that it si not ideal to leave before about 6pm. The flight options SYD-ADL include a 6 pm Virginblue flight (there was a 7pm flight) and a 6:30 pm Qantas flight both of which are not do-able on a regular basis. This has left me on an 8:45pm Qantas flight. This flight is just too late really. I find that I sit around the Qantas club rationing my beers, as I have to drive in Adelaide, being bored.

This situation then gets me to Tiger. They have a 7:30 pm SYD-ADL flight. :shock: I just can understand why the other airlines can't understand there is a gap here. So it was that having made it to platinum I thought I'd give Tiger a try, because of the convenient timing and because it was about $120 cheaper than Qantas.

When I booked the flight I was vaguely aware of the on time performance issues with Tiger, but didn't really think about it. As the day got closer I got more and more concerned. I checked Flight Stats and they told me 100% cancellation rate on SYD-ADL, but only for 3 flights. In relation to Tiger as a whole it was 96% on time perfromance, 2% cancellation.

Not looking good. So much so that on the day of the flight I tried to track the operating aricraft through it's day by using various airport websites and matching gates and departure and arrival times. By using that process I sketched out the following guess at what the aircraft was doing:

ADL-BNE-ROK-BNE-ADL-SYD-ADL

I had a nervous few hours watching it get later and later. 4 minutes late into BNE, 11 minutes late getting back from ROK, 19 minutes late getting back to ADL. Then I realised that there was 1 hour 40 minutes before it left ADL again. big enough turn around to catch up.

 

[medhead]

I ended up leaving work a bit early at about 5:10 pm. I might have left at 5 pm mainly because of the 45 minute check in thing. But I had a teleconference and a couple of things to fix up at the last minute. Just on that I had to check in at the airport as I knew my luggage was about 13 kg and I didn't want to risk excess charges at the gate. So I had paid the $20 for checked luggage.

It was a quick walk down Oxford St to Museum Station, a 4 minute wait for the airport train, with only a slight delay at Central station. I ended up entering the check in line at 17:48. There was a slight shock to see that the line was full. I had done a couple of scouting trips to the line over the previous 2 months between 6pm and 7pm to see that the line was bearly occupied, maybe about one third to half full. The line ended up about half full by the time I got to the front of the line. So it would probably be better more toward about 18:15. People must ahve got the message about checking in early. There were also about 3 people waiting in the check in line with web check boarding passes. Clearly very inexperienced flyers.

View attachment 1244

After about 10 minutes the line was split into the Adelaide and Melbourne flight (scheduled for 19:55). The 2 of the 3 checkin staff checked in the Adelaide passengers. Contray to the show, the checkin staff were pretty proactive to make sure that we would make the cut off. In the end I ended up getting my boarding pass at 18:10 and I was past security at 18:12. 24 minutes seemed pretty good to me.

I then proceed to the T2 Qantas Club to see if they would be kind enough to look up my status based on my gold card.

 

[medhead]

SYD T2 Qantas Club

It ended up be a very easy process to ask the the service desk staff to look up my status on the basis that I hadn't received my platinum card yet. They were very helpful, informed me of any time access and reminded me that they only call QF and JQ flights.

This was my first visit to the T2 QP and I must say it was a pleasurable experience. The lounge was uncrowded, there were no lines for food or bar. Overall, I may switch to using this lounge over the T3 lounge of an evening. That will of course depend on my experience in the T3 J lounge.

I ended up leave the lounge at about 18:50 for the 19:00 boarding time. Wandered around to the gate, with a quick look in the Virgin shop for the INXS album Kick. Didn't find it, any one who has a spare copy let me know.

I got to gate 38 just as the aircraft was arriving from ADL.
View attachment 1248

For anyone who knows T2 Gate 38, I got some "action" shots from the moving walk way.

Once I got to the gate lounge it was fairly full looking. There was also 7 police officers and a dog (seemed to be a snifter type dog and not a beagle). I waited for the action, but nothing eventuated. The poice left shortly after the last passenger got off the aircraft. Gee, got to question the passenger types if the police just routinely stand right next to the exiting passengers with a dog. I have never seen that before.
View attachment 1249

 

[UP4014]

A report is alwys good with photos, as yes police hanging around the Tiger gate is that to pick up a passenger or make sure the passengers don't make a charge for the employees.

 

[medhead]

TT8907 VH-VNO SYD-ADL Dep. 19:30 Arr. 21:10 A320 16A

Boarding commenced just aftr 19:00. It was a full flight. The premium rows were called first, row 1 and the 2 exit rows. There there is priority boarding.

Then the free for all started, I was in 16A (sequence 151) with row 16 being the first of the board from the rear seats. I mentioned that I have trouble walking up stairs and the nice boarding staff let me push to the front and board via the front door. I was pretty much the first person after the "premium" pax, so about 22nd in to the aero bridge and the sight that confronted me in the aerobridge was unbelievable. It looked like there much have only been 2 pax actually on the aircraft. I have never seen that on other airlines either

View attachment 1250

Once the premium pax sorted themselves out I was pretty much straight into my seat. There seemed to be a real problem with reading the seat number from the boarding pass. Also maybe a muslim man/woman thing were I lady was trying to get into 2F and the man in 2D decided that he needed to switch with his wife in 2E.

The overhead locker space seemed to be massive, and I think I could have got my rolla bag into the locker on it's side, hence occupying a smaller footprint. Rolla bag was of course in the hold. Leg room was well non-existant, I'm 183 cm, or just about spot on 6 foot in the old money.
View attachment 1251 Obligatory shot

The seat however did feel a bit wider then on a qantas or virgin blue 737. I had no problems with armrest space and in fact wasn't even uncomfortable not having my arm on the armrest.

Boarding was basically chaos. I mainly put this down to told inexperience with flying. Overhead locker packing skills where totally absent as usual, but there was also the inablilty of people to rearrange to find space as well. The were a number who just couldn't do the seat number thing. I shared row16 with a family of 2+2 who it seems whould have been in BC and DE. You would think that would be easy, but apparently not, the CSM told them they had 3 seats on one side and 1 on the other. As a result 16F ended up next to me in 16B. That was actually a pretty good outcome, as my seat buddy also flys to SYD every week for work on the 6am Monday flight, but returning on the Tiger flight. I had an interesting chat with him, he had some great tips. He mentioned that in 50 weeks of taking the flight it had only been delayed more than 30 minutes about 3 times and once was more than 2 hours. He thought the overall saving was worth those odds. I really should have got his contact details. I'll have to watch out for him on Monday morning and ask him into the Qantas lounge, or perhaps he can get me into The Lounge.

The aircraft ended up pushing back 7 minutes late at 19:37 with a take off to the north and we ended up entering the runway at 19:55. The flight was normal with the ipod on and a book to read. Despite the lack of leg room, I was actually not really uncomfortable, I think due to the seat feeling wider. The pilot keep us fully informed, including the taxi clearance arrangements for take off, coming on about 4 times. Safety brief was professional. Ended up pulling into Gate 26 at ADL exactly on time at 21:10. Deplaning was the usual chaos, but I did end up waling off the aircraft at 21:20.

I think that Tiger will continue to be late because of the inexperience of the passengers. When entering the gate I had to prompt 3 people to start boarding after they had put out the general boarding annoucement. They were just standing there in the way looking bemused. The FAs had to go through the aircraft and repack all the overhead lockers again, IMO, because of inexperienced pax. These lead to delays at pushing back that was compounded by having to wait for incoming aircraft (at least according to the pilot). More experience pax might have got us ready those 30 seconds quicker and hence out in front of the incoming aircraft. :?:

I can only see Tiger as a good thing in this regard, because as more people get experienced the delays may shorten.

Would I do it again? I don't know. I won't rule it out, the experience wasn't that bad. Next time I might pay the extra for better seats. Based on this experience my savings threshold has reduced from $120 to about $80, provided I'm still a Qantas platinum. The other difficulty is my luggage. I dont' have a permanent place in Sydney and so I need to carry stuff back and forward. This means I need to check in luggage and then the 45 minute check in cut off means I need to leave work earlier than I should. My seat buddy does have somewhere in Sydney and is therefore travelling lighter and can use web check in.

All that means that Tiger would be a consideration during school holiday times when Qantas fares are excessive and I can make the $80 saving even with the paid check in, luggage and seat. Virgin Blue's schedule will still rule them out for SYD-ADL for me.

Overall, not a bad experience and I would recommend people to give Tiger a shot at least once. The SYD-ADL route seems pretty good if the aircraft does have that 1 hour 40 minute turn around in Adelaide before operating ADL-SYD-ADL.

 

[medhead]

A report is alwys good with photos, as yes police hanging around the Tiger gate is that to pick up a passenger or make sure the passengers don't make a charge for the employees.

That's what I thought and I took a few photos of them. But they just stood their watch people de-plane, they didn't pick up any one and they didn't hang around for boarding. The dog was right there at the exit from the airbridge and I really think it was a drug dog. So it would seem just a random check. Or perhaps there is a pattern for certain pax on the cheap flights.

The photos are working ok?

 

[medhead]

Quick update on the checked baggage experience with Tiger. My little case came out looking rather squashed. In fact I've never seen it look like that before. Anyway, I grab my laptop charger today and one of the power pins was bent. I was highly unimpressed. There was also some guy at the carousel who was saying something about his bag being damaged. I didn't pay much attention at the time. But I think that suggests a bit of a pattern on the baggage handling standards.

Luckily I was able to carefully straight the pin out.

 

[kamchatsky]

Quick update on the checked baggage experience with Tiger. My little case came out looking rather squashed. In fact I've never seen it look like that before. Anyway, I grab my laptop charger today and one of the power pins was bent. I was highly unimpressed. There was also some guy at the carousel who was saying something about his bag being damaged. I didn't pay much attention at the time. But I think that suggests a bit of a pattern on the baggage handling standards.

Luckily I was able to carefully straight the pin out.

First rule of flying tiger: Never have checked luggage!
Second rule of flying tiger: see first rule!

They seemed to take forever for taking out the checked baggage, because they want to spend more time loading passengers for the next destination (to meet their ontime performance), leaving the checked luggage for the arriving passengers last.

It really is a pity that they are reducing their flight for ADL-SYD to 1 flight per day from 2 from November. Otherwise I would have flown them more.

 

[medhead]

First rule of flying tiger: Never have checked luggage!
Second rule of flying tiger: see first rule!

They seemed to take forever for taking out the checked baggage,

Unfortunately in my case carry on only was not possible as I didn't want to risk excessive fees as I was over the limits.

The baggage came out quick enough I only had about a 90 second wait at once I got to the carousel.

 

[drron]

A good report.Though funny that yesterday I was thinking if there weren't so many experienced fliers on AA that they could get away earlier-some of the carryons were as large as our checked luggage-and they would have 2 or 3 carryons so an inordinate amount of time wasted whilst people trying to stuff everything in the overheads.

 

[Australian]

A good report.Though funny that yesterday I was thinking if there weren't so many experienced fliers on AA that they could get away earlier-some of the carryons were as large as our checked luggage-and they would have 2 or 3 carryons so an inordinate amount of time wasted whilst people trying to stuff everything in the overheads.

How funny you say that - I was reading this yesterday!

American seems to have imposed the fee without actually calculating how much revenue it could raise. When asked, Arpey couldn’t say how many checked bags will fall into the charge-to-check category and was vague about the revenue target.

Worse, the customers targeted with the fee are the ones most likely to try to duck the $15 addition by using larger carry-ons. That’s dangerous because these less-experienced fliers (think families and once-a-year vacationers) think any bag with wheels qualifies as a carry-on. It doesn’t. American’s website says the largest acceptable carry-on bag is no larger than 45 linear inches (length plus width plus height) and weighs no more than 40 pounds.

So be prepared for time-consuming arguments at the ticket counters and check-in kiosks. Unless it’s prepared to countenance ticket-counter madness, American will have to deploy additional staff to do the baggage triage. There goes some of that extra revenue Arpey was counting on.

​

Then there’s the stress that more carry-on bags will cause at security checkpoints. Fliers who would have normally checked their lotions-and-potions and other troublesome checkpoint items will now have them in their carry-ons. That’ll mean more time spent preparing for the screening process and clearing security.
Once these slowed-down, baggage-laden fliers reach their departure gate, they’ll run into dozens of other travelers who’ve also maxed out their carry-on allowance. With airlines running 80 percent full, that means a free-for-all for available carry-on space. American’s overworked flight attendants will have to police the planes, often going row by row to ensure that travelers have loaded bins effectively and used their under-seat space. That’s sure to delay flights—American ran an industry-trailing 62 percent on time in March—and delayed flights cost money. There goes more of Arpey’s $15-a-bag revenue stream.

But, wait, it gets worse. No matter how efficiently passengers and flight attendants arrange luggage, some passengers probably won’t have room to stow their gear. That means American’s gate agents will be required to gate-check the extras. That’s a time-consuming process. An agent must get a luggage tag, affix it to the bag, then hand it off to a baggage handler on the ramp, who must then stow it in the belly of the aircraft. More time lost.​

Food for thought! Esp when you consider the the fine print:

The Fine Print… None of American’s direct competitors—United, Delta, Northwest, Continental and US Airways—have yet matched the $15 checked-bag fee. [Edit: they since have!] But history indicates that they will. On the other hand, Southwest Airlines, the industry’s only profitable major carrier, has announced that it will continue to allow travelers to check two bags for free. [Edit: and they still do (http://i.slimg.com/sc/sl/graphic/u/ul/ultimate-guide-to-airline-fees.pdf)!]

In fact, it's really odd when you compare it to the Australian situation ... the only two major US carriers with free check-in luggage... are their LCCs!! (Southwest/Jetblue) ... Both also clearly scoop the pool in quality/satisfaction over the full-service legacy carriers, too (Satisfaction survey shows fliers less irked at airlines - USATODAY.com) ... but that does fall in line with Australia, where Virgin seems to consistently come out on top in satisfaction ratings (CHOICE satisfaction survey for domestic airlines in Australia.) ... perhaps if Virgin gets the 'happy medium' right between LCC-Value/"Full service"-Quality, the momentum will really start to burn between them and Qantas, which hasn't had great PR lately with issues over safety, etc ... And one thing I dont think you'll ever hear about a Virgin FA . . . “Qantas has some rather coughy flight attendants.”! :-| That's really not a public image you'd want to have... I love QF, but at times Ido think it could refocus/shape up a bit - for a global carrier, perhaps it sometimes suffers from the same fate as the big US ones, in that it can become a bit inward looking (ie, read arrogant) and think it hasn't got much to learn ... but that's just my 2c worth

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[medhead]

A good report.Though funny that yesterday I was thinking if there weren't so many experienced fliers on AA that they could get away earlier-some of the carryons were as large as our checked luggage-and they would have 2 or 3 carryons so an inordinate amount of time wasted whilst people trying to stuff everything in the overheads.

thanks
a very interesting dichotomy with the luggage and experienced vs inexperienced flyers. sticking to luggage limits will always speed things up. I guess I was mainly shocked because I didn't notice any Tiger passenger with stupid amounts of carry on.