Tiger Airways leaves students stranded in Darwin

[straitman]

Several of my family have used TT however with the type of problems that continue to reappear I could not in conscience use them in a situation where time or connections are important.

 

[oz_mark]

Several of my family have used TT however with the type of problems that continue to reappear I could not in conscience use them in a situation where time or connections are important.

cause QF are so much better? :mrgreen:

 

[joeb3]

I recently flew with tiger and I was disgusted at their service.


Paid $110 for Canberra to Melbourne return tiger tickets. True cost was over $563 (Yes five hundred and sixty-three dollars!). Tiger airways changed both flight times and didn’t notify me. I would not fly tiger airways ever again, even if the hostesses were naked, willing and it was my bucks night.


I booked Melbourne to Canberra flights which were to depart at at 7:00am in the morning. Before the flight, they were rescheduled to 5:30pm which meant one wasted day of my holidays in Melbourne. For my Melbourne to Canberra return flight, which was due to leave at 5:00pm, I turned up at the airport to go home they said my flight was cancelled. Tiger airways did not notify me in advance of my cancelled flight. Told me their were no other flights to Canberra that night. Refused to put me on a flight with another airline. Refused to let me sleep in their airport terminal as it was closing for the night. Told me I would have to sleep in another airlines terminal 10 minutes walk up the road or on the street or book a hotel for the night. Refused to compensate me for additional cost of a hotel or getting me on a flight with another airline. I spoke and complained to the fool on the front desk of the terminal, the fools bimbo manager, and the fools bimbo manager’s manager. Then I spoke to the call center. Not once did anyone I ever dealt with say the word “sorry”.


I made them reschedule my flight to the next morning, a $40 taxi ride back to the city to the cheapest Hotel I could find at $230 due to last minute rates! Another $40 taxi ride back to the airport in the morning to twiddle my thumbs for another delayed tiger airways flight. I finally get home to Canberra and start racing off in my car to a late appointment only to be pulled over by the police to issue me with a $143 speeding fine. Total cost of this misfortune so far $563 and that doesn’t include the bottle of scotch and blood pressure pills that I needed to cure my rage.


I have read so many articles in the newspaper about tigers lack of customer service and poor flight records. One article I read said that tiger has a delayed/cancelled flight rate of more than 1 in 5 or 20%. What a poor record, I will never fly tiger again.


ACCC needs to act now and put tiger airways out of business. I am sick of the stories I hear about the way tiger airways bait consumers into bookings flights with them and then when they realize they don’t have enough bookings to make the flight commercially viable, they cancel the flight at the last minute citing “operational” difficulties.


Tiger airways needs to wake up and get their act together.

 

[straitman]

cause QF are so much better? :mrgreen:

They all have their share of issues but at least with QF I get looked after with connections and have a lounge and a few free drinks, stuff they loosely call food and internet access :!:

Other airlines have variations on this depending on the situation. :mrgreen:

 

[pauly7]

They all have their share of issues but at least with QF I get looked after with connections and have a lounge and a few free drinks, stuff they loosely call food and internet access :!:

Other airlines have variations on this depending on the situation. :mrgreen:

I agree, the few times there have been issues on the QF network for me they have bent over backward to fix the problem.

For this feeling of security alone I'm more than happy to pay a premium(and thats before taking into account all the many other superior elements, lounges, drinks, food, equipment, seating etc etc etc)

Even when I fly Jetstar I feel a little nervous about the 'what ifs' (although so far only 1 major delay and that resulted in them re-booking me on QF so can't really complain too much!)

 

[oz_mark]

Even when I fly Jetstar I feel a little nervous about the 'what ifs' (although so far only 1 major delay and that resulted in them re-booking me on QF so can't really complain too much!)

To be honest, I think Jetstar have pulled their head in somewhat from when they started out, and I doubt some of the things that happened in the early days would be such a drama now.

 

[pauly7]

To be honest, I think Jetstar have pulled their head in somewhat from when they started out, and I doubt some of the things that happened in the early days would be such a drama now.

Yes that is a fair comment, they did actually do a good job of sorting me out as posted above. They have definitely made some changes for the better and I put them on par with DJ now.

Tiger appears to be like Jetstar on day 1 but 4 X as worse it seems!

 

[Evan]

I would say bit Virgin Blue and Jetstar have improved from my experiences and what people have said. I guess maybe Tiger will get there in time.
Still at the end of the day they are just another cheap airline and should be treated as such, full service is what i pay for... and its payed off many times, like hitting LHR late on QF/BA and having a BA connection that was missed, so simply they purchased a ticket on LH for me, may have spent 3 or 4 minutes at the counter given the offer to stay in hotel or fly another airline both at there expense.
Cant imagine i would have the same joy with Ryan Air.

Still in these days where you dont need to re-confirm flights i still make a habbit of always checking just to be sure there is not a last minute change by logging into the website. And to make sure my seat reservations have been kept and not been bumped due to equipment change etc.

E

 

[JohnK]

To be honest, I think Jetstar have pulled their head in somewhat from when they started out, and I doubt some of the things that happened in the early days would be such a drama now.

Nah! I think Jetstar hasn't changed at all but rather Tiger has taken all the focus away from Jetstar....

 

[drron]

Nah! I think Jetstar hasn't changed at all but rather Tiger has taken all the focus away from Jetstar....

I wholeheartedly agree.Whilst waiting for my DJ flights from MCY I used to snigger at the JQ announcements-flightXYZ is delayed 1 hour etc.Now it is much better theatre as TT announce that due to our IT system being down and manual checkin their will be a delay in flight XYZ to MEL.This with 50 people still in a queue an hour after scheduled departure.I can also imagine the thoughts of those that boarded early with stragglers still boarding an hour after the commencement of boarding.

 

[bushtuckerman]

Mmmm... seems Tiger is pretty aweful. One way to get their chronic underdelivery addressed is by making a Ministerial Complaint. Put your issues, and Tiger's response to your complaints to the following people.
The Commonwealth Governments is obliged to respond.

1. The Hon Anthony Albanese MP, Minister for Transport, PO Box 6022 Parliament House CANBERRA, Australia 2600, or Email: [email protected]

2. The Hon Gary Gray, Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development & Northern Australia, PO Box 6021 Parliament House CANBERRA, Australia 2600, Email: [email protected] (Gary Gray is responsible for civil avaition),

Ensure your complaint is brief and factual (no tomes), and identifies Tigers' specific under-performance especially in relation to its obligations under its Australian licence, media references, and your loss as a result.

Side-note: I have a confirmed "free" Tiger flight from CBR to MEL in August, and have a 6hrs lay-over before my international flight. After reading members' comments, maybe I should consider booking with a reliable carrier rather than Steptoe & Son. I have a lot to lose if I miss my international connection.

Cheers
Bush

 

[pauly7]

Side-note: I have a confirmed "free" Tiger flight from CBR to MEL in August, and have a 6hrs lay-over before my international flight. After reading members' comments, maybe I should consider booking with a reliable carrier rather than Steptoe & Son. I have a lot to lose if I miss my international connection.

Cheers
Bush

I would definitely make sure you have top of the line travel insurance!

 

[pauly7]

Nah! I think Jetstar hasn't changed at all but rather Tiger has taken all the focus away from Jetstar....

John... I don't think that is completely fair - but I agree Tiger's dismal performance has drawn the attention from JQ and DJ a little.

18 months ago if I found myself defending JQ I would have thought myself mad!

But it is a point of fact that they swallowed some hard lessons and have made some changes for the better such as allocated seating, removal of tiered boarding, frequent flyer points, a J class on their international offering, ability to purchase extra leg room space on domestic, video entertainment options etc etc etc - all of which for JQ were big leaps especially when you remember what they were like to begin with.

All of the changes has made flying them more acceptable
(dare I type enjoyable) and as a result they are getting less complaints and I feel that the staff who used to be quite closed (from consistantly copping flack from PAX) are now alot more friendly and open.

My opinion anyway, I put them on level with DJ now.

Would be interesting if JQ whacked in a domestic premium Y product or J.... see what would happen... - they would be able to learn from the diasaster that is DJ's thats for sure!

 

[Mal]

I don't think anyone could say that the cancellation was never publicised.

Eg:
AdelaideNow... Tiger Airways axes Darwin services

(while that is an Adelaide News Ltd article, similar articles found their way into other versions of their papers).

What does surprise me the most is that in the 3-odd months between when the flight was cancelled and they were due to fly that none of them checked their booking on the Jetstar website, or even confirmed the timetable for their flight was still the same.

Based on a uni experience, they would be checking and re-checking exam timetables because they have a tendency to move around. Just like they would be double checking movie times if they were planning to see a movie. So I just can't work out why something like this would occur.

 

[NM]

What does surprise me the most is that in the 3-odd months between when the flight was cancelled and they were due to fly that none of them checked their booking on the Jetstar website, or even confirmed the timetable for their flight was still the same.

Maybe that is where they went wrong. Might have been better if they had looked on the Tiger website instead

 

[Mal]

Maybe that is where they went wrong. Might have been better if they had looked on the Tiger website instead

Perhaps

 

[FL360]

Side-note: I have a confirmed "free" Tiger flight from CBR to MEL in August, and have a 6hrs lay-over before my international flight. After reading members' comments, maybe I should consider booking with a reliable carrier rather than Steptoe & Son. I have a lot to lose if I miss my international connection.

Cheers
Bush

This is the situation when a fully flexible / fully refundable ticket comes in handy....

 

[NM]

This is the situation when a fully flexible / fully refundable ticket comes in handy....

indeed. But most people purchasing Tiger fares are looking for lowest cost and not considering the implications of flexibility at the time of their purchase.