Travel dilemma in Tasmania. Which is worse, a low cost A320 jet or a full service tight pack turbo-prop?

The Scoot+Tiger single fare options, as of today

The new realities of Tiger Australia + Scoot taking on Jetstar Australia +Jetstar Asia  are apparent today.

Twice daily return flights between Melbourne’s main airport and both Hobart and Adelaide by Tiger Australia started this morning.

And overnight the initial tranche of single fare combination itineraries between Tiger Australia and Tiger Singapore and Singapore Airlines’ wide body long haul carrier Scoot (which flies out of Sydney and the Gold Coast daily) took effect, as shown in the graphic at top of screen.

But travellers need to be mindful that the Jetstar response hasn’t yet appeared, and respond it must.

Jetstar’s Australian operations and those of its Singapore based franchise Jetstar Asia are already integrated at Singapore Airport, but given the fierce speed up in the Tiger+Scoot combination, it can be expected to do more, and soon.

In fact the smart price conscious traveller now has even more opportunities than ever to sector shop, and mix and match flights on Jetstar, Tiger and Scoot for both outward and inward trips to get even better deals as the opportunities arise, leaving a sensible number of hours free at Singapore Airport to enter Singapore and collect any checked luggage and then depart from Singapore and check in on the selected flight on the other airline, all within the same terminal but doing the airside/landside/airside dance.

Singapore Airport in its own right isn’t a bad place to spend a more than a few hours, which is the minimum you will need to leave between flights on different airlines.

The Tiger+Scoot combos, like those already possible on Jetstar, are not just for the Australian market. They are for the rising opportunities of the Asia-Australia leisure market, and are naturally hedged, in that any decline in the high Australian dollar will encourage the replacement of Australian travellers with inbound travellers responding to a foreign exchange benefit which will make this country more competitive against Hawaii and other destinations within their own parts of the Asian hemisphere.

The Tiger and existing Jetstar flights to Tasmania also pose an interesting dilemma for all who are flying to and from the mainland.  As Qantas responds to the success of Virgin Australia in offering a fuller service alternative to Jetstar by adding its own services to the routes, it has left itself vulnerable to the disparity of comfort between the flights it operates with Boeing 737s, and Qantaslink Q400s, which have no business class and tiny unpleasant seats, which make the 737 look very good.

The problem for Qantas, and for that matter Virgin Australia, should it ever also introduce single class ATR turbo-props on the services, is that a tight fit turbo-prop isn’t necessarily more comfortable than a tight fit Jetstar or Tiger A320, and the latter will always be priced cheaper than the former.

Naturally, Qantas would be attracted to the substantial fuel savings achieved by short range turbo-prop flights. But that’s unlikely to cut it with a customer asked to pay more for a free biscuit and coffee who gets jammed into a Qantaslink turbo-prop for more than a seat in a Jetstar or Tiger jet.

The biggest challenge to any airline is a customer who compares and considers!