Tiger Airways Australia Grounded by Civil Aviation Safety Authority

[Megatop]

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[RHG]

as Tiger Aust is a subsidiary of Tiger SIN - then if Tiger Aust's operations shutdown bec of safety concerns n issues with some relating to pilots' training n conditions - then would its SIN ops be affected as its training are based on Tiger SIN?

AFAIK, Tiger Australia operations are kept seperate from Tiger Sin. Tiger Australia was essentially a company bought over previously and pilots who are employed were certified by CASA, not CAAS or other sin authorities.

It would be speculative to make further comments.

The appointment of JY Pillay would indicate a bit of desperation by the board. But if anyone can't do it, he can.

[boing]

Boing - Please take a few minutes to read at least the first half of the following article. Tiger Australia has a very poor track record on regulatory compliance, customer satisfaction, consumer affairs compliance and profitability. Since the grounding they appear to have found a new way to break the rules - continuing to sell tickets when they did not have a valid operating certificate.

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalk...han-low-fares/

I'm not saying TR is innocent of blame and was a perfect airline. All I'm saying is that other airlines under CASA's purview had their fair share of incidences and would like to know what brought CASA to ground TR over other airlines. QF had numerous maintenance related incidences in the past one year.

One of the facilities QF uses for their maintenance outsourcing was found by FAA to be less than perfect.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...6240b5207ef0a8

Jetstar had their incidences and is found to be guilty of intimidating pilots an d having fatigue inducing rosters which are detrimental to the safety of passengers.

http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/...-2011-073.aspx

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalk...nd-to-airline/

Why didn't CASA act on them and ground these airlines ? What warranted TR's grounding that was not present in others ?

Grounding an airline is not a trivial thing and must have been brought by exceptional events. We'll never know as the general public is not made privy to the reason CASA grounded TR other than the cursory " non-compliance" and two lower than MSA landings that is out in the press.

I don't think it's pure coincidence that the Australian government doesn't take too kindly to any form of Singapore aviation in their soil or remotely near theirs.

That's just my view.

[Concorde]

Boing

You are right that, unfortunately, we will never really know as the process is not adequately transparent.

"What warranted TR's grounding that was not present in others?" That is a good question.

One clear difference is that Tiger was issued a show cause notice by CASA on March 23. That is an extremely serious signal to the board of Tiger Airways Holdings Limited that their Australian subsidiary was about to be closed down, unless CASA could be persuaded otherwise.

What did they do between March 23 and July 1 ? Clearly not enough. They waited until the airline was grounded before sacking the Australian CEO, switching Chairmen and appointing an Acting CEO.

A bit too late I reckon.

Also, by not contesting CASA's court action to extend the grounding to August 1, it appears that they are finally acknowledging that they have a serious problem.

A few days ago Tony Davis was aggressively saying that CASA was all wrong. I saw him interviewed on TV last night - his attitude has suddenly reversed and he is now saying they will do whatever it takes to make the airline safe.

Tiger Australia's previous arrogance towards CASA, its passengers, the Australian Taxation Office and ACCC (consumer affairs) is well documented.

J Y Pillay's influence has quickly prevailed since his appointment just two days ago. Tiger Australia's staff should be much relieved by this development.

[RHG]

Boing

Also, by not contesting CASA's court action to extend the grounding to August 1, it appears that they are finally acknowledging that they have a serious problem.

A few days ago Tony Davis was aggressively saying that CASA was all wrong. I saw him interviewed on TV last night - his attitude has suddenly reversed and he is now saying they will do whatever it takes to make the airline safe.

I disagree with some of your points raised.

Tiger Australia, like many of Sing's ownerships were bought from a previous airline. I cannot remember what the name was, was it Rix or something?....

Anyway, its probably a difference in mindset. At that time, the then owners convinced everyone they were a stable and established carrier which didn't need much capital or infrastructure input which obviously wasn't true. on Sing's end, they were happy to be essentially Venture capitalists.

What happened in recent days was probably a suggestion to transfer Singapore based pilots to Tiger Australia temporarily while all the pilots were retrained. CASA rejected it and wanted it to be purely aussie based. Since the outgoing CEO crawford couldn't fix the situation, he was essentially given a golden handshake.

I guess its a timely reminder to do proper due dilligence and background checks when mergers and acquisitions occur. That sweet talking or nice looking fella selling you his car may be selling a lemon instead.

Tiger Australia's previous arrogance towards CASA, its passengers, the Australian Taxation Office and ACCC (consumer affairs) is well documented.

Tiger Australia is actually not the worst offender and considered average. one of the worst is actually bestflights.com.au, part of the former stella travel group. The CEO is now gone. They had over 23 ACCC violations and show cause notices. All were ignored. FWIW, ACCC regulatory hurdles are in practise considered just formalities. Prosecutions are common, convictions are rare.

[Concorde]

RHG

I may be wrong, but I thought that Tiger Australia started from a clean sheet of paper, not an acquired AOC.

It was Jetstar that was started from an acquired AOC - Impulse Airlines which was bought by Qantas. It started with the ex Impulse 717s before the A320s arrived.

Rex (Regional Express) continues to operate independently.

[cscs1956]

Jetstar grounds four aircraft for checks July 8, 2011 - 3:59PM

AAP
Australian carrier Jetstar grounded four aircraft on Thursday night after missing maintenance inspections.
The A320 aircraft were serviced overnight, forcing the cancellation of two return services on Thursday.
Emergency light batteries on board the aircraft were tested, while hydraulic fluid was sampled and door switches were lubricated.
Advertisement: Story continues below
All aircraft were returned to operation on Friday.
Jetstar has advised the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) of the grounding.
"Safety is our number one priority and there was no risk to the safety of the aircraft," Jetstar spokeswoman Andrea Wait said, adding that she not know where the four aircraft were grounded.
A CASA spokesman said the aviation watchdog would check to ensure that Jetstar's maintenance systems are robust.

Source: http://news.smh.com.au/breaking- ... 20110708-1h6f4.html

[Megatop]

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[Megatop]

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[Megatop]

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[flyguy]

SIA n Temasek should also clean up and audit its S'pore's Tiger operations esp in its safety and maintenance, training and esp too in its almost non-existent customer care or customer delivery.
And this should also serve as a very timely reminder to SIA's new Budget medium to long haul carrier which SIA is going to start.

[Megatop]

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[oxymoron1984]

Australia lifts ban on Tiger Airways effective immediately

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking...ry_700597.html

[SQ_fanatic]

An open letter to all Australians from the Tiger Airways team

We know that many Australians have been inconvenienced these past few weeks, and for that we apologise. We're sorry.

But we're also listening: listening very hard to what you want from us. Our mission is to be a safe, reliable airline that enables ALL Australians to go the places they want to go at a price they can afford to pay.

Since we haven't been flying, our competitors have raised their fares by more than 30%*; we don't think that&#8217s fair. It's a big country, and we believe that every Australian should be able to travel for a reasonable price.

So while we're always looking for ways to improve, one thing will never change: our absolute commitment to ensuring all Australians can go to the places they want safely, affordably and reliably.

Thanks for your support,

The entire Tiger Airways team


* Source: Goldman Sachs & Partners Australia Investment Research 18 July 2011.