Angry Flyers Lounge: Make Tiger pay now
Today’s bad press on Tiger raises the question, why shouldn’t consumer protection laws force all airlines to promptly refund fares and pay compensation when they strand passengers and force them to pick up the tab for hotel rooms, meals and other incidentals?
There is no justification for Tiger taking up to two months to compensate hundreds of passengers for the expenses they had to meet in Hobart last Friday when it pulled their flight.
If Tiger can operate an airline it can’t seriously claim to be challenged by the simple task of providing compensation on the spot. It has passenger credit or debit cards on record from the fare purchase. It can reverse the transactions instantly. Holding on to the money for months is grubby.
If Tiger can’t understand this, and fix it, there is a clear case for consumer law to be applied to them, whether through existing laws or airline specific amendments. For the carrier to call the police to assist them in ripping off their customers is obnoxious.
Early last month Crikey contributor Adam Schwab took Virgin Blue to the Small Claims division of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal over its refusal to offer cash rather than a voucher for a future flight when it cancelled his flight, and won.
Consumer activism against the airlines has become a huge issue in the US, the UK and Europe. If the Australian carriers can’t respect the basic rule that it is the customer’s money until the goods or services are given or performed what option is there but to compel them to change their ways.
Update: Tiger statement on Friday’ Hobart flight cancellation
Tiger Airways was forced to cancel a Hobart – Melbourne flight on Friday evening when a cabin crew member fell suddenly ill and required emergency medical attention.
Unfortunately we do not have a crew base in Hobart and so no replacement was available – we need a certain amount of cabin crew to fly each flight by law.
Tiger Airways apologises to affected passengers but this situation was outside our control.
140 passengers were booked on the flight and were offered a range of options (over and above the terms and conditions that passengers agree to at time of booking) to minimize the inconvenience and move them to their destination as soon as possible. All available seats on Saturday and Sunday (Hobart – Melbourne ) were given to re-accommodate affected passengers onto those flights and there are seats available on today’s flight which departs Hobart at 9:15pm tonight.
Options provided to passengers are outlined below:
Full refund
Credit to fly at another time
Compensation for accommodation in Hobart if they are non-residents
And free of charge transfer to another flight
Some passengers opted to fly on Saturday, some on Sunday and there is a flight tonight at 9:15pm departing Hobart with spare seats.
Tiger Airways apologises about this situation, but it was out of our control.
Cancellations and delays occur with all airlines. TA works hard to keep them to a minimum and actually has the lowest cancellation rate of all major domestic airlines since we started operations in November 2007 (by percentage of flights).
Tiger Airways apologises to any inconvenienced passengers and remains focused on minimising the disruption and will progress affected passengers’ alternate travel arrangements as soon as possible.
(There is Police presence at Hobart airport at all times and it is common occurrence for their attendance given the sensitive environment. Safety of staff and passengers underpins Tiger’s operation at all times)
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An interesting response from Tiger but why didn’t they say where the flight attendant fell sick? If he or she went U/S in Hobart, they may have some defence but if he or she was sick ex Melbourne, then that has to be another story.
And they continue to spin by suggesting they enjoy the “lowest cancellation rate of all major domestic airlines since we started operations in November 2007 (by percentage of flights)”. Where do they sit when it comes to the raw number of flights?
As to the consumer, I believe that it’s time that a Charter of Rights was introduced for LCC passengers. There are two indisputable facts: one is that LCCs schedule their fleet to the extent that there’s little or no ability to recover schedule when the day turns pear-shaped. The other is that as fares offered are generally so low, their flights have to be sold to capacity so that there’s little or no scope to assign disrupted passengers to other flights, sometimes for days on end. Even though the punter pays peanuts, the LCCs do not have the right to abandon the disrupted passengers as it suits while they hide behind their very unfair terms and conditions. Until this market matures, some consumer protection is required. Unfortunately, consumer protection is a State responsibility while aviation matters are for the Commonwealth – never the twain shall meet!
by Ken Borough on Oct 26, 2009 at 7:23 pm
“Where do they sit when it comes to the raw number of flights?”
-They’d be far less since they’ve operated less flights, percentage of schedule is the only thing that could possibly matter. That’s a stupid comment to make.
An interesting response from Tiger but why didn’t they say where the flight attendant fell sick? If he or she went U/S in Hobart, they may have some defence but if he or she was sick ex Melbourne, then that has to be another story.
- Well if she went sick in Melbourne don’t you think someone else would be upset about their flight ‘being delayed for three days’ and being stuck in melbourne? Just saying.
This is really suss. How does an issue from saturday make news only now. Coincidentally they also just announced a new route. Seems like the competition can’t take the heat.
by jazz on Oct 26, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Off Topic Post: Ben I was actually hoping you’d put up a post on the recent US passenger aircraft that flew past the airport for a couple of hundred miles whilst the crew “argued”. However since you haven’t I’ll ask my question here.
From what I’ve read there is only a couple of hours at most of cockpit voice recorded by the black box on an aircraft. Whilst I appreciate there are probably physical limits as to how much you can store on the tapes they currently use why isn’t there at least a separate system to digitally record the entire flight from engine start to engine shutdown? Surely with modern electronics and data compression it wouldn’t take much (nor cost much) to have a system that records the entire flight’s cockpit conversations as say an mp3 file for use in an investigation such as is required in this case.
by Josh on Oct 26, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Why couldn’t they have flown another member of cabin crew to Hobart on Saturday and fly the plane back out then, taking everyone back on the plane they were supposed to be on?
by Andrew Ballem on Oct 27, 2009 at 2:32 pm