Tiger Airways Drops Australian Domestic Routes

Tiger Airways says it is cutting back its flights in Australia to improve profitability and customer relations. The low-cost carrier’s routes from Melbourne Tullamarine to Mackay and Rockhampton will be suspended from August 1. According to the airline, these services have been impacted recently by rising oil prices and the recent Queensland natural disasters.

“These network changes will both streamline and simplify our Australian operations, enabling us to focus on combining our low fares with improved punctuality,” said Crawford Rix, Chief Executive Officer, Tiger Airways Australia. “The changes that we are making to our flying programme will enable as to improve punctuality across our network and we are hopeful that as we grow the airline we will be able to restore services on the affected routes in the near future.”

Tiger Airways is currently the only airline to offer direct services from Melbourne to Mackay and Rockhampton but has still faced strong pressure from the flights of Qantas and Virgin Australia, via other locations. On the Mackay route it dominates the market with a 47 per cent share of the 56,000 O&D passengers this past year, but on the Rockhampton link it has just a 22 per cent share of the estimated 33,000 O&D travellers.

The low-cost carrier has built a 4.6 per cent share of the domestic Australian market since it launched operations in November 2007, positioning it as the fourth largest airline in the country, albeit a long way away from its larger rivals Qantas (42.2 per cent), Virgin Australia (28.3 per cent) and Jetstar Airways (19.6 per cent).