Tiger to add Hobart,Canberra and Newcastle

[Standby]

Tiger launches Canberra, Newcastle and HobartTIGER Airways has just announced the commencment of flights from Melbourne to Newcastle in NSW, Canberra in the ACT and Hobart in Tasmania from the start of 2008.Newcastle will be Tiger's first port in NSW, while the launch of Canberra flights would mean the ACT region will "for the first time have access to the benefits of a true low cost airline and real competition."Davis said the decision to fly to Hobart followed an "impressive response" to Tiger's Launceston services.The carrier also announced a sale of 40,000 seats from today at 11am, with fares from $9.95 one way including taxes.More information in today's Travel Daily.This Travel Daily breaking news brought to you by Holiday Autos.

Nothing on the web site as yethttp://tdlists.traveldaily.com.au/link.php?M=199&N=354&L=11

 

[Keith009]

CBR?? Interesting....
Didn't DJ fail there because their LCC service wasn't attractive to corporate and government account flyers?

 

[stuartfaz]

CBR?? Interesting....
Didn't DJ fail there because their LCC service wasn't attractive to corporate and government account flyers?

That was SYD-CBR. MEL-CBR has a relatively large takeup with DJ, I believe.

BTW SYD-CBR is being brought back by DJ using the Embraers in January.

 

[oz_mark]

That was SYD-CBR. MEL-CBR has a relatively large takeup with DJ, I believe.

BTW SYD-CBR is being brought back by DJ using the Embraers in January.

Some of the issue was the frequency. Using dash-8's QF was able to provide a more frequent service than DJ with 734's. The Embraers are a more suitabl eoption on the sector.

 

[Yada Yada]

CBR?? Interesting....
Didn't DJ fail there because their LCC service wasn't attractive to corporate and government account flyers?

In addition to what stuartfaz mentioned, VB now also has a Lounge in CBR and the Velocity FF program has been established with tiers and a stack of partners, so likely to be a lot more attractive for business and government this time around.

Not sure if Tiger will p/up any of this type of traffic. Maybe they are going for the primary school excursion business? :shock:

 

[NM]

Maybe they are going for the primary school excursion business? :shock:

A significant market, no doubt. But also a good reason to fly with someone else .

 

[Keith009]

I was getting at the fact that DJ had to move somewhat upmarket and use smaller planes to offer greater frequency to be an effective player in the CBR market. I don't think TT is moving upmarket anytime soon, and it'd be serving CBR out of its limited pool of A320s. The excursion business does sound pretty plausible... It'd be competing head on with DJ for sure.

 

[justin23]

Good news for people in Canberra. The airport here has been pretty agressive to get new airlines to fly here. I wonder if they will pick up any business from Sydney to make the international flights. Newcastle are probably likely to pick up a share of the Sydney market. I drive to Sydney for international flights because the cost of tickets are not worth it (actually when redeeming points i fly out of CBR because often its the same points) and it takes close to 2 hours of time to fly CBR-SYD as opposed to a 3hr drive.

I've also read many times Tiger will not fly to Sydney as they couldn't offer competitive flights there (ie it could not offload profit on this sector and make it up elswhere due to its lowcost model.

 

[fortymilliondaggers]

Not sure if Tiger will p/up any of this type of traffic. Maybe they are going for the primary school excursion business? :shock:

Not only inbound but outbound! Most people in Canberra are really from somewhere else. While the drive up the Hume Highway to Sydney is 3 hours and very busy on Fridays and Sundays, going to Melbourne is too far. This may also be a ploy to go into markets where Jetstar are not - Virgin and Qantas have been charging outrageous prices ex-Canberra for some time now. More competition is always a good thing. Unforunately, I don't think this will be anything revolutionary, apart from adding capacity to a route which is very, very expensive on the weekends. I wonder how they'll fill the jets during the week.

 

[justin23]

I think most of the traffic from and to Canberra will be transiting Melbourne.
Places like DRW ASP PER etc have in the past been very expensive from Canberra.

 

[stuartfaz]

I've also read many times Tiger will not fly to Sydney as they couldn't offer competitive flights there (ie it could not offload profit on this sector and make it up elswhere due to its lowcost model.

Right now this is also true for BNE. TT is using OOL as its gateway to Brisbane, in much the same way AVV is to Melbourne with JQ. TT are meant to be running a shuttle bus service from OOL to Brisbane city, but I haven't heard anything further on that subject, apart from the fact that it will exist.

 

[clifford]

This has to be a good thing for Canberra.

Tiger is a much more professional airline than DJ (who wants to be treated like a 3 year old on every flight?) and will also no doubt lower the airfares to MEL (at least for a short while).

BTW, no self respecting public servant or businessman is going to fly SYD-CBR (or vv) on DJ (at a similar price to QF), so why are they bothering?

 

[stuartfaz]

This has to be a good thing for Canberra.

Tiger is a much more professional airline than DJ (who wants to be treated like a 3 year old on every flight?) and will also no doubt lower the airfares to MEL (at least for a short while).

BTW, no self respecting public servant or businessman is going to fly SYD-CBR (or vv) on DJ (at a similar price to QF), so why are they bothering?

Virgin will get a much higher take-up on SYD-CBR routes due to the lounge, the new tiered Velocity and, eventually, the Y+ offering. It gives them a much higher chance of success then when they were competing as a true LCC.

I don't see TT's entry lowering any CBR fares. DJ won't compete with them, they haven't done so on any other routes, I don't see them starting now. From my observations it's really now QF v DJ and JQ v TT.

Unfortunately I can never seem to relate to your comments about DJ, clifford. I have flown with them many times and have never found them to be anything but professional and courteous. However, your views are just as valid as anyone else's here.

 

[Mal]

BTW, no self respecting public servant or businessman is going to fly SYD-CBR (or vv) on DJ (at a similar price to QF), so why are they bothering?

Best Fare of the Day policies (especially when the booking agents who absolutely stick by the rules are involved) are some of the ones who'll be flying DJ...

There are people who fly DJ by choice you know. I've met DJ staff both inflight and socially, and have never had them treat me like a 3 year old.

 

[oz_mark]

This has to be a good thing for Canberra.

Tiger is a much more professional airline than DJ (who wants to be treated like a 3 year old on every flight?) and will also no doubt lower the airfares to MEL (at least for a short while).

BTW, no self respecting public servant or businessman is going to fly SYD-CBR (or vv) on DJ (at a similar price to QF), so why are they bothering?

Not sure what the issue is with public servants and DJ. Given the improvements that DJ have made to their product over the past year or so, the arguments against flying DJ must be wearing down by now.

As for Tiger being a much more professional airline, given they aren't flying yet, I am unusre how you can make the comment. I used to hear the comments about DJ traeting passengers in a childish way, but it has been a long time since I heard anyway speak that way of them. From what I can gather they have lefted their game in that area.

 

[Yada Yada]

This has to be a good thing for Canberra.

Tiger is a much more professional airline than DJ (who wants to be treated like a 3 year old on every flight?) and will also no doubt lower the airfares to MEL (at least for a short while).

BTW, no self respecting public servant or businessman is going to fly SYD-CBR (or vv) on DJ (at a similar price to QF), so why are they bothering?

I agree that having both Virgin Blue and Tiger flying to CBR will be good for us travellers.

I disagree with your summation of Virgin Blue. I know many here view me as a one-eyed supporter of VB, and some have said I must be an employee. To put it in perspective, I am QF Gold and just a fraction away from Velocity Gold, so I've flown both' airlines a fair bit in the past year.

Like Stuartfaz, I find VB crews professional, courteous and they never treat me like a child. I haven't seen a VB flight with more than a couple of empty seats in the past 12 months so I don't think they're putting lots of people off. But each to his/her own.

I have to go to CBR tomorrow at short notice and will drive there and back because I can't justify the lowest QF fare avilable ($258 one way Flexi-saver) and VB can only offer SYD-MEL-CBR at present which will get me there too late.

I am one businessman who most definitely will fly Virgin Blue from SYD to CBR when the E-Jets begin service.

 

[brissyflyer]

Well I've so far I have not really posted here, tending to read instead of comment but think I will change that.

While Tigers fares esp sale fares are really good the luggage allowance of 15kg isn't good if you are going on holidays and when you addon the $25 fee to increase to 20kg and $5 for seat selection the fare isn't all that good. On a $39.95 (todays price) Launceston flight this would make the fare $69.95 which compared to DJ cheapest non sale fare of $70 or JQ $60, they don't look so cheap.

Also I wouldn't like to fit into one of their standard seats with 28.5 inch pitch, it even makes Jetstar look spacious! :shock:

I'll happily stick with DJ for my domestic travels (yes I am also a fan of Virgin, I like their friendly attitude and humour and the better legroom compared to other domestic airlines)

Peter

 

[rwatts]

Not sure what the issue is with public servants and DJ. Given the improvements that DJ have made to their product over the past year or so, the arguments against flying DJ must be wearing down by now.

My (very large) Govt department has announced new measures to enforce BFOD. For example, I can no longer nominate particular flights I wish to take - I must now tell the Qantas Business Travel agent when I need to get to my destination and they will offer the BFOD that fits. If I dont accept those flights without a good enough reason they are required to report that back to the department for followup. Lounge membership of a particular airline is specifically mentioned as not a good enough reason.

This could at last force a lot more departmental traffic onto DJ. The silver lining could be that it appears the equivalent DJ fare to the (heavily discounted) QF Fully flexible fares is the corporate plus fare - which includes lounge usage. In that case I'm quite happy to give them a go - the ADL>CBR DJ flight times are more desirable than QF's for a start (QF708 arrives in CBR after 9pm).

Richard.

 

[Harriet Vane]

As one of those aforementioned public servants in CBR, the argument for Qantas where I work is largely that our flight requirements can change dramatically on the day and QF just has more flights that we can work with. It also allows us to switch to one of the many earlier or later flights QF runs (particularly from Sydney) rather than sit around being paid for nothing if our job finishes earlier than initially anticipated/switch to a later one if it runs over time.