an announcement airways?....what the heck is an announcement airways?
singapore airlines is very serious about tiger....read below.
Tiger flags bigger Airbus fleet Font Size
April 25, 2008
TIGER Airways is expected to announce its second Australian base within weeks and could accelerate the delivery of Airbus A320s to the local market.
Chief executive Tony Davis was not expecting the problems that had slashed profit forecasts at Virgin Blue to dampen enthusiasm for his Australian operations and said this week that the prospect of sending more A320s to Australia was "certainly a possibility".
He said this could be in addition to two Airbus A319s that Tiger was introducing in a bid to open up regional routes.
The announcement of a second hub was now "weeks away, not months away" and the airline was evaluating how quickly it could bring in aircraft to start services to and from the destination.
The evaluation would look at whether the airline would use the A319s to launch routes out of the new base or whether it would look to increase the number of A320s.
"The context for this is a very, very solid performance last year," Mr Davis said.
Tiger is adding its fifth A320 to its 13-destination Australian network this month and revealed last month that it would also be bringing in two 144-seat A319s - the first in Australia - some time this year.
The three planes, which equate to a 65 per cent increase in seating capacity for the new airline, are among up to 30 aircraft earmarked for Australia as the airline grows its fleet to 72 aircraft by 2016.
The airline is now moving to bring forward some of those orders by taking advantage of overseas cancellations as airlines fold or defer growth plans under the onslaught of high fuel prices.
Mr Davis would not give specifics on where those planes would go - the Tiger group also has interests in Singapore and Korea - but said it was committed to bringing additional aircraft into the fleet as quickly as possible.
He believed that uncertainty in the market had created opportunities for Tiger in much the same way it had for the low-cost carriers such as Ryanair in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks.
"I think whilst this isn't of the same magnitude as the immediate days following September 11, what you are seeing is similar behaviour where, particularly in the US, a number of airlines are talking about capacity reductions, about possibly grounding aircraft, deferring deliveries or delaying growth," he said.
"It does mean that people like us, who are still committed to a sustained growth based on strong demand for our product, are able to take advantage of some of those opportunities."
Mr Davis said the airline was still comfortable with its decision to order A319s despite some surprise at the move among industry observers in Australia.
He had heard from several sources that one of Tiger's competitors had been "quite frantically phoning around the market trying to see if there were any 319s available that they could acquire at short notice".
"So I think we're very comfortable that the addition of the 319 to our fleet does give a different competitive dimension," he said. "It does open up additional route opportunities for us and we're keen to develop that infrastructure as quickly as possible."
News of the accelerated fleet plans came as Tiger this week provided a limited grab bag of numbers to show how its operations had grown in its 2007-08 financial year, which ended on March 31.
The figures were unaudited and did not include any dollar or profit figures.
However, the airline said gross revenues in the final quarter were up 107.7 per cent on the previous corresponding quarter and 81.6 per cent higher for the year.
Passenger growth in the fourth quarter was up 82.7 per cent year-on-year while growth for the year was up 50 per cent with 2.25 million seats sold.
Tiger also boasted an 8 per cent rise in load factor for 2007-08, without revealing the percentage of seats sold. Capacity growth for the year was 39.6 per cent.
Mr Davis said the airline was not releasing full figures because it was waiting for the audited numbers.
But he said the big rise in fourth-quarter revenues and passenger numbers was significantly affected by Tiger Australia and that the local operations were already cash-flow positive.
And he was not worried that the factors that prompted Virgin to reduce its profit forecast - a softening domestic demand, high fuel prices and increased capacity - would also bring down Tiger.
"I think, from our perspective, we see the shake-out in the market clearly causing harder trading conditions for everybody," he said. "But certainly for people like us - with a very disciplined model, with a very focused cost base - it does create some opportunities as well.
"Look at the numbers we shared during the week.
"I think for a launch airline with the kind of route network that we've rolled out as quickly as we've rolled it out, the fact that our flights are so full tells you that there is definitely a demand for the kind of fares that we've been offering."
Mr Davis said the market had now differentiated into various products, with Tiger offering a clean, simple model based on low fares.
"We believe that if you do get into a situation where people are looking a bit more carefully at their wallets, are a bit more concerned about where the economy's heading, that they will be focused on price even more than they were in the past," he said.
"And that means they are more likely to fly with us."
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