Tiger forced to delay Alice Springs launch

[Mal]

Qantas has Tiger by the tail | The Courier-Mail
"Qantas executive general manager John Borghetti said he was not in business to help his rivals.

"It is normal practice for any business to have all of its arrangements in place before it starts operating," Mr Borghetti said.

"Assisting competitors is not part of my job description." "

[pauly7]

Bit of a funny story, was reading this thread thinking 'Oh well thats the risk you take with an LCC I guess' and thinking that it was pretty rough of Tiger just to abandon their passengers without even rebooking them (I mean even DJ did that at the start)...

Then, my sister calls, who is backpacking around from Aus next week with a friend, and was booked onto a Tiger/Alice flight. I resisted the 'didn't you see all the *pending approval etc notices' but to 'normal flyers' they are very small type notices on the website combined with 1000 other notices and easy to miss. Understandbly she is furious about it and not happy about also having to wait 2 weeks before Tiger will refund.

Apparently the Tiger call centre have been quite rude saying they can't get it refunded any more quickly (which is rubbish, if you really want to you can do CC refunds on the spot, the only thing that is stopping them is their own red tape) which is pretty annoying for people.

I think its pretty crap they aren't rebooking them either, I do understand why - because they can't afford to, (Tigers call centre excuse 'We aren't a travel agent we can't book other airlines') but I still don't think it is right.

What I do know is that they would have lost alot of potential customers who have been burnt by this.

[milocole]

Bit of a funny story, was reading this thread thinking 'Oh well thats the risk you take with an LCC I guess' and thinking that it was pretty rough of Tiger just to abandon their passengers without even rebooking them (I mean even DJ did that at the start)...

Then, my sister calls, who is backpacking around from Aus next week with a friend, and was booked onto a Tiger/Alice flight. I resisted the 'didn't you see all the *pending approval etc notices' but to 'normal flyers' they are very small type notices on the website combined with 1000 other notices and easy to miss. Understandbly she is furious about it and not happy about also having to wait 2 weeks before Tiger will refund.

Apparently the Tiger call centre have been quite rude saying they can't get it refunded any more quickly (which is rubbish, if you really want to you can do CC refunds on the spot, the only thing that is stopping them is their own red tape) which is pretty annoying for people.

I think its pretty crap they aren't rebooking them either, I do understand why - because they can't afford to, (Tigers call centre excuse 'We aren't a travel agent we can't book other airlines') but I still don't think it is right.

What I do know is that they would have lost alot of potential customers who have been burnt by this.

I was quite shocked by Tiger doing this, seriously they have lost THOUSANDS of customers, anyway if they didn't get approval, this is what they would have done, just refunded people, and the airline would probaly have gonw under as well. Anway im leaving in about 20 mins for my TT flight to the GC, ill be taking heaps of phots, videos etc, and pics of the T4, and T3 at the Gold coast. I hope on VH-VNC (new), anyway i will post my LONG report on this forum or airline quality review website on either Sun, Mon, or tuesday. I will most likely write this from one of those web cafes at Broadbeach at Pacif Fair, Im sooooo nervous, BYE

[SeaWolf]

Isn't there regulations about monopoly providers refusing service to potential competitors? After all, Telstra has long been forced to provide access to its network.

The people who really lose out in all this are the people of Alice Springs, who are going to have to keep paying monopoly rates to QF until TT can get itself setup. It's certianly not going to help raise QF's image in their eyes. If QF wants to keep hanging onto that 65% share of the domestic market its going to have to start to accept that it isn't the only bird in the sky anymore and that it needs to being appealing to consumers, rather than acting like they have nowhere else to go.

[oz_mark]

Bit of a funny story, was reading this thread thinking 'Oh well thats the risk you take with an LCC I guess' and thinking that it was pretty rough of Tiger just to abandon their passengers without even rebooking them (I mean even DJ did that at the start)...

In most cases, Tiger are 'abandoning' people in their home town (Melbourne). Also, you would need to consider what reaccommodation options would even be available if they were going to do this. It is one thing to reaccomodate on a MEL-SYD sector, but MEL-ASP could be quite a different story.

[NM]

Isn't there regulations about monopoly providers refusing service to potential competitors? After all, Telstra has long been forced to provide access to its network.

That probably depends on your definition of a "monopoly". Is Qantas the only groiund handling provider at that location only because nobody else has bothered to establish the facilities? Or is there some regulation or other impediment protecting Qantas as the sole service provider?

And has anybody confirmed that Qantas refused to provide the service, or was it just that the two parties could not agree on mutually acceptable terms? I can imagine QF would be reluctant to offer terms that would be desirable to TT.

[oz_mark]

Isn't there regulations about monopoly providers refusing service to potential competitors? After all, Telstra has long been forced to provide access to its network.

The people who really lose out in all this are the people of Alice Springs, who are going to have to keep paying monopoly rates to QF until TT can get itself setup. It's certianly not going to help raise QF's image in their eyes. If QF wants to keep hanging onto that 65% share of the domestic market its going to have to start to accept that it isn't the only bird in the sky anymore and that it needs to being appealing to consumers, rather than acting like they have nowhere else to go.

Certainly, it seems that someone in Qantas has taken a rather childish attitude, and maybe there are legal avenues for Tiger to investigate.

Reading between the lines of this whole thing, I suspect that Tiger and Qantas had negotiated on access, but it got stopped somewhere up in the approval process within Qantas.

[Petch]

someone in Qantas has taken a rather childish attitude, and maybe there are legal avenues for Tiger to investigate.

It would seem, there might be other avenues as well -

"It is ironic that a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, a Tiger Airways shareholder, provides ground handling to both Qantas and Jetstar in Singapore" Tony Davis

e-Travel Blackboard: Australia's Number One Industry Newsletter

[oz_mark]

It would seem, there might be other avenues as well -

"It is ironic that a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, a Tiger Airways shareholder, provides ground handling to both Qantas and Jetstar in Singapore" Tony Davis

e-Travel Blackboard: Australia's Number One Industry Newsletter

Doubt there is much they could do - there are other ground handling providers in Singapore that would be ready, willing and able to do the job if SATS stopped.

[Standby]

It would seem, there might be other avenues as well -

"It is ironic that a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, a Tiger Airways shareholder, provides ground handling to both Qantas and Jetstar in Singapore" Tony Davis

e-Travel Blackboard: Australia's Number One Industry Newsletter

As always the devil is in the detail and never let fact get in the way of a good whinge.
The subsidary is called SATs ...a ground handling company NOT an airline. also lets not use the Kevin Bacon 7 degrees of separation here...Sats is also a subsidary of the Sin govt Its role is to provide cost effective ground handling for an airport with a bit more Through-put than ASP...inorder the expand their economy..there is nothing stopping the NT GOVT doing likewise...or heaven forbit Tiger do their own.