The One Place Where Tigerair Still Flies

Okinawa, Japan - October 3, 2023: Tigerair Taiwan Airbus A320 airplane at Okinawa Naha Airport (OKA) in Japan.
A Tigerair Taiwan A320 at Naha. Photo: Adobe Stock.

Since launching in Singapore two decades ago, Tiger Airways went on to start offshoots in several other countries including Australia. It has since ceased operating in every single one of those markets… except Taiwan.

A brief history of Tigerair

Tiger Airways, later rebranded as Tigerair, was originally a private airline based in Singapore. The ultra low-cost carrier had a fleet of Airbus A319 and A320 jets, which it used to fly short and medium-haul routes from Singapore. The airline’s first ever route was from Singapore to Bangkok.

Singapore Airlines, which also owns the low-cost airline Scoot, purchased a majority stake in Tigerair in 2014. For a few years, the budget airlines worked separately with Tigerair operating short-haul flights and Scoot primarily flying Boeing 787s to long-haul destinations.

In 2017, Tigerair merged with Scoot. Both airlines now fly under the Scoot brand, but use the original Tiger Airways “TR” IATA code.

Tiger Airways expansion into Australia

In the meantime, Tiger Airways had expanded internationally and set up operations in four other countries. Tigerair Australia launched in 2007, providing low-cost competition to Jetstar and Virgin Blue.

Virgin Blue Boeing 737-800 in original red livery
Virgin Blue later rebranded as Virgin Australia, with Tigerair eventually becoming Virgin’s low-cost airline in Australia. Photo: Adobe Stock.

Two years later, it became the subject of Australian TV show “Air Ways” on Channel 7. If the irate customers shown on Air Ways were anything to go by, the airline’s customer service was anything but smooth sailing. The flying operations also hit turbulence two years later when CASA, Australia’s aviation safety regulator, grounded Tiger Airways Australia.

Tigerair Australia went on to fly again, but was chronically loss-making. In 2014, Virgin Australia bought the Australian Tigerair subsidiary for $1 – which may sound like a steal, except that the purchase also involved taking on a lot of debt.

Tigerair eventually ceased flying at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and Virgin Australia permanently shut down the budget airline in 2020.

Expansion into other overseas markets

Over the years, Tigerair also expanded into the Philippines, Indonesia and Taiwan.

Tigerair Philippines was acquired by Cebu Pacific in 2014 and rebranded as Cebgo, the regional arm of Cebu Pacific.

In Indonesia, Tiger Airways had purchased Mandala Airlines out of bankruptcy and rebranded the operation as Tigerair Mandala. That lasted around two years before the new airline also declared bankruptcy in 2014.

That leaves Tigerair Taiwan as the sole survivor. This was originally launched in 2013 as a joint venture between China Airlines, Mandarin Airlines and Tiger Airways. However, Mandarin Airlines and Tiger Airways have since sold their shares to China Airlines.

Tigerair Taiwan flies on

Since 2017, Tigerair Taiwan has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Airlines, one of three full-service airlines based in Taiwan.

The present-day Tigerair Taiwan operates a fleet of 15 Airbus A320 jets on short-haul routes within Asia. The airline has bases in Taipei and Kaohsiung, flying predominantly to destinations in Japan and South Korea.

The airline is able to maintain a strong presence in Taiwan as the only major low-cost airline based there. Fortunately for Tigerair Taiwan, there is enough demand in its home market to support three full-service airlines (China Airlines, EVA Air and Starlux), regional airlines including Mandarin Airlines and Uni Air (owned by EVA Air), and Tigerair as the main low-cost airline.

Batik Air Malaysia operates somewhat of a mini-hub in Taipei, from where it operates fifth-freedom routes to five cities in Japan.

Tigerair couldn’t compete in Australia

Although Australia too has a robust aviation market, Tigerair Australia just couldn’t compete with a very strong Jetstar.

A Jetstar Airbus A320 takes off
Jetstar dominates the low-cost airline space in Australia. Photo: Jetstar.

Since the demise of Tigerair Australia, a new lost-cost entrant has emerged in Bonza. But Bonza’s strategy is very different to that of Tigerair. Rather than competing head-on with Jetstar – and all the other Australian airlines – Bonza is targeting regional routes with no direct competition.

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.
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This reminded me of Value Alliance:

No idea whats happening now given the website no longer works.

Tiger airlines back in the days of the Changi budget terminal was certainly something, for a while they didn't offer thru check and then when they did start to offer it you had to pay extra.

In more recent times you could even book TT, TR and TZ flights on the one booking but that changed when Scoot and Tigerair merged.

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I once dropped relatives at Melbourne T4 for a tiger flight. Out of 8 departure flights on the board 4 were canceled 2 were seriously delayed. When they arrived at the head of the queue that snaked out of the terminal after being in the queue for over an hour checkin said the relatives too late to check in.

But then the flight was two hours late and after some argy bargy the airline reopened checkin so the half of the passengers on the flight who couldnt checkin before were able to get boarding passes.

In the end it left 4 hrs late.

No surprise none of the extended family ever bought a ticket with them before they folded

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The issue was Tiger Australia simply had too few aircraft for their schedule and route network (from memory they started with 5x A320 and worked them hard). So as soon as there was any delay or technical issue with the aircraft, it would have huge knock on effects on all their flights for the day. Combined with the inherently longer routes in Australia, where a very short route is still 1.5h long, and 3-4h not uncommon, it was always going to end badly.

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The issue was Tiger Australia simply had too few aircraft for their schedule and route network (from memory they started with 5x A320 and worked them hard).

Sounds a bit like a current low cost startup in the market.

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Sounds a bit like a current low cost startup in the market.

It's always going to be a fundamental issue of scale; when you've got one or two flights a day between Point A and Point B, losing cancelling one of those is much more impactful than the intercity bus-service like schedules the bigger airlines will have. I couldn't begin to quantify how many CBR-SYD flights I've had cancelled, but you just get shuffled to the next one in 30-60 mins, or if connecting, routed through BNE or MEL. TIGER (or Bonza or Rex) just don't have the flexibility to do that and if you're running very high load factors, the scope for rebooking is further reduced in subsequent days too. (Nobody is immune though, getting a DRW flight cancelled can be hardly better for example even with QF)

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