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Tiger Airways India, China flights on cards
BY OUR AVIATION CORRESPONDENT
May 20, 2005: Tiger Airways Pte, Singapore's leading low-cost airline, is seeking regulatory approvals to commence flight services to India and China, in an attempt to tap growing opportunities in the world's two most-populous countries. The airline is also planning to launch services to Indonesia, a nation of over 238 million people.
“We have applied for rights to fly to India and we are also looking at flying to destinations in China. Indonesia is also in our scheme of things and we intend to launch flights to all the countries on receiving necessary approvals," Tiger Airways Chief Executive Officer Tony Davis said.
The flight routes and ticket fares will be decided only after receiving the necessary aviation sector approvals, even though the prices and services will be competitive with that of other low-budget airlines who will be launching their flights on these sectors.
Tiger Airways is planning to expand its fleet, with the acquisition of more aircraft and recruitment of personnel, in the next 12 months to support these flight routes. Davis, however, did not disclose the number of aircraft acquired nor the number of staff the airline intends to recruit.
Tiger Airways will begin flying to Indonesia, another populous country, in June with a flight to Padang, the provincial capital of West Sumatra province. Tiger has received necessary approvals and is ready to start services any day.
Low-budget airlines like Tiger Airways, Jetstar Asia and Valuair Ltd are expanding fleet and flying to more destinations in Southeast Asia, a region with a combined population of 500 million people. Last year, these airlines accounted for over seven per cent of the air passenger traffic from Singapore’s Changi International Airport.
Tiger Airways plans to operate an Airbus A320 aircraft with a 180-seating capacity to serve the Singapore-Padang route. It already serves routes to Thailand, Macau, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Other no-frills airlines like AirAsia and Valuair have commenced flights to the country, a lucrative market as far as air passenger traffic is taken into consideration.
The carrier is ferrying more inbound passengers to Singapore, with at least 1,000 more passengers travelling to the city-country than that travel outside.
“This marks a significant milestone for us as it means that our new routes from Vietnam, Macau and the Philippines are attracting lots of visitors to Singapore. What is also interesting is that the number of inbound tickets that we have sold to date for June and July 2005 exceed outbound tickets by 20 per cent to 50 per cent, Tony Davis said.
Tiger Airways, a venture between Singapore Airline (it holds 49 per cent stake in the airline) and the founder of Irish discount airline Ryanair, will be the second budget airline to fly from Singapore's Changi Airport.
It operates four Airbus A320 aircraft serving nine routes in Southeast Asia. The carrier had started operations in September 2004.
BY OUR AVIATION CORRESPONDENT
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