There is a lot more focus by Tiger Australia on the routes where it can exercise pricing power over its competitors in its latest round of capacity increases announced today.
Before it was grounded last year Tiger tied up jets on routes where Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin Australia probably paid little attention compared to the rest of their networks.
But this is different. For the 27 March to 31 October scheduling period Tiger is lifting frequency between Melbourne and Sydney from a maximum of five return flights a day to eight.
That amounts to a total of up to 16 flights a day on Australia’s busiest route that bargain hunters might choose for a mixing and matching of best fares, and most convenient travel times.
It also populates the booking matrices for those playing air fare snakes and ladders with enough ultra cheap Tiger offers to force Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin Australia to post a similarly visible range of opportunities for people to fly them at fares which charge less for their brand premium than they would normally try to collect.
On the Melbourne-Perth route Tiger doubles its frequency to two return flights daily. And on Melbourne-Gold Coast, Tiger is lifting is capacity from double daily A320s each way to three daily.
The only other route is flies at present, Melbourne-Brisbane, remains at up to three returns daily.
It is too early to say whether Tiger will slide back to its previous habit of offering outrageously high fares for last minute bookings, on the assumption that once seats begin to get scarce, some people will pay anything to anyone to fly.
But the higher frequency Tiger offering between Sydney and Melbourne may curb the Jetstar practice of offering so called MAX package fares that are more costly than the best deals parent Qantas and rival Virgin Australia have posted at about the same time.
Whatever else it achieves, Tiger could force Jetstar to remain true to the low cost airline model, and charge fares that are as low as the quality on offer.
4 Comments
Forgot to pay my BPay voucher for Jestar flt to Adelaide on Christmas eve. Flt was about $250 Vs QF best of $800ish at the time. So when I went to check in online and discovered that my bookings no longer existed Jetsar offered me a new ticket for $456.
I went to Qantas website and got ticket 5 hrs before flt for $189. I prefer to fly Qantas anyway so being cheaper it was a no brainer. Stupid Jetstar!
Ben, that’s good news that downward pressure will be applied to prices on those routes.
As a matter of interest, would you rate Tiger as reliable enough to fly with? Maybe not to attend a job interview or funeral on the same day as travel, but for a holiday? What do you think?
Roger,
Given the intense surveillance and the fact that the fleet is not fully utilised, leaving them some options if a jet goes unserviceable, I’d be prepared to fly them once in a day if as you say, there was a bit of slack in the diary.
Roger,
If I were you, I would only do it if you had enough spare cash easy to put your hand on to book an alternative at last minute and if you are prepared to use your local Office of Fair Trading as your travel agent to recover the refund you ARE entitled to.