Last Thursday it apologised for incorrectly charging some customers over the use of a baby seat.

The next day it apologised to the RSL for conducting an ANZAC DAY sale which broke the laws protecting the day from commercial exploitation.

And today it is apologising to a person who was charged twice, once on a VISA card and then on a Mastercard, for a flight, and is asking them to identify themselves so that they can get some money back.

For an airline with only five jets that started flights in November 2007 and has attracted massive negative media this sounds like someone has decided its time to stop the rot.

So we’re here to ‘help’ the Crikey way, by opening an Angry Flyers Lounge on Plane Talking. No joining fees, and only a few stale celery stalks hiding behind the soggy crackers in your typical airport lounge from hell with too few seats.

Just come in, with a valid email address, and a real complaint, and even some photos or vids of your nitty gritty airline or airport experiences, and tell the world.

Anyone caught working for another airline and planting naughty innuendos will be fed to the First Dog.

Here is today’s wrap, featuring by coincidence, nothing but Tiger Airways. (Overseas airline experiences also welcome here.)

Last Thursday’s Crikey Tips included an item from a Tiger ex-customer who was double debited for a Canberra-Melbourne fare ticket. The Tiger agent could get the payment accepted on one credit card, so tried on another, resulting in separate VISA and Mastercard debits for the same seat followed by incorrect claims that this would be fixed by Tiger staff on arrival in Melbourne.

The response from Tiger is as follows:-

Tiger Airways is a streamlined operation which is why it is able to bring Australians consistently the lowest airfares. Customers are encouraged to book their travel requirements on line to secure even better deals and to ensure they tailor their travel options to their requirements.

Double charges unfortunately occur from time to time across a wide range of personal and commercial transactions (from banks to retail outlets). It’s not common, but if a double charge occurs for Tiger Airways customers, we refund them as soon as we are aware and confirm the situation.

Tiger Airways apologises to this customer and will investigate however will need the customers name and contact details to do so.

Tiger Airways invites the customer to send a fax to 03 9335 3455 and we can call him back to discuss directly and we will rectify the situation immediately.

Today’s Tiger service failure report is from a couple who we will identify to Tiger if they give Crikey approval, as the complaint was filed on our anonymous link.

It says:-

My husband, his pensioner parents and I booked a Tiger Flight from Adelaide to Melbourne on 17th of November 2008 departing at 0725. We arrived at the airport to find the flight had been cancelled, they had not notified us despite having our 2 phone numbers, postal address and email address. Tigers ‘Conditions of Carriage’ state that if flight details change they will make every effort to contact the passengers, this obviously didn’t happen.

There were no Tiger staff at the airport to advise us what to do next, our only option was to call their Melbourne office, the number had been provided to us by an Adelaide Airport official. The official incidentally told us that they had been aware of the cancellation for over one week. We were among 40 others who were stranded. The Melbourne office of Tiger didn’t open until 9am EST, we were stranded at the airport at 6am Adelaide time. We had no option but to buy tickets on another carriers flight to Melbourne at premium airport prices.

My family had to spend $200 each to fly with Qantas nearly 3 hours after we were supposed to have departed with Tiger.

After several attempts we did manage to get through on the Tiger phone line to be told that we would receive a refund for the Tiger flights and to contact Customer Relations to discuss further refund options for the Qantas tickets. They refused to offer a reason as to why the flight had been cancelled or why we had not been notified. We have received the refund for the Tiger tickets.

We have since contacted Tiger on numerous occasions via letter and fax to discuss this matter requesting to get a refund for the Qantas tickets we had to purchase at the airport. After 4 months we received a written response which did not address any of our questions and did not even have a representatives name on it. We have received extremely poor service from Tiger and would not recommend them to anyone. They claim to be a budget carrier but in our experience they ended up costing us a lot more money.

We are still pursuing Tiger for the refund of our out of pocket expenses.

As pointed out in this item in Crikey today, it is also contrary to rules and laws that its competitors obey.

Tiger Airways launched a blatant Anzac Day rip off this morning leaving itself open to prosecution under the Crimes Act and by the ACCC.

It announced a special ANZAC Day sale ‘with more than 30,000 FREE seats’ for travel between 1 June and 30 September.

Two problems. The use of the term ANZAC is protected under Australian law from commercial exploitation except under very limited and specific conditions which include the prior approval of the Veterans Affairs department.

And under ACCC rules an advertised free seat or fare means $0.00, not $0 plus airport charges and GST of between $22.08 and $35.13 plus a ‘convenience fee’ of $5.

The ACCC’s rule on domestic air fares and the law in relation to GST prohibit the breaking out of that tax and other sub components of a fare and compel the advertising of the full price of the goods or services being offered to the consumer.

The national president of the RSL, Major General Bill Crews said this morning “Potentially Tiger is in breach of the act in relation to the protection of the names Anzac and Anzac Day from commercial exploitation.

“I note that particularly in this case we are not talking about air fares available for use on Anzac Day, which could have been of benefit in relation to reunions and the commemoration of the day.

“The first flights on offer under this Anzac Day sale are not available until June.

“The whole purpose of this exercise seems to be to associate the commercial sale of seats for use in a general sales promotion with Anzac Day and has no proper association with the observances of this day, and this is of considerable concern.”

The Minister for Veteran Affairs Alan Griffin is in France in advance of ceremonies marking Anzac Day but guidance issued by the department is that this is a most serious issue, and that approvals for activities which associate themselves with Anzacs or Anzac Day must among other things be directly related to its observance .

All of which makes Tiger Airways Australian managing director Shelley Roberts sound rather grubby.

Roberts spruiks the FREE ANZAC Day sale in the media release saying “ANZAC DAY (her emphasis) is a special time for Australians to unite for commemorations.

“As Australia’s true low fare airline, we’re thrilled to offer consistently the lowest airfares across the country so Australians can come together or take a well deserved break, more often,” she is quoted as saying.

This crass drivel might pass for typical low grade PR on an ordinary day, but this is about Anzac Day, and this effort to cash in on it by the Singapore Airlines controlled token low cost entry in the Australian market is offensive and illegal.

Under the relevant parts of s.4B of the Crimes Act as applied to an Anzac Offence a person can be imprisoned for up to 12 months or fined $6600 or both, and a body corporate can be fined up to $33,000.

Earlier this week a Perth brewery renamed a special brew made to a World War 1 recipe a ‘Memorial Ale’ to avoid infringing the act protecting the word Anzac from commercial exploitation.

Apart from permitted social and fund raising events on the day, the only widespread commercial use of the term Anzac that is allowed is in relation to Anzac Biscuits, and they have to conform strictly with the original recipes.

In several conversations with Tiger’s spokesperson in Australia the airline has claimed that the public doesn’t understand low cost airlines and the manner in which they work to achieve very low fares.

I’ve suggested in reply that keeping money for flights that don’t operate, or double debiting customers, or making it impossible for people to contact the carrier isn’t a case of providing low fares at all. It is a matter of theft, or at least very bad manners.

Those who have been complaining to Crikey and other media about Tiger paid money and have received nothing as yet in some cases. The Tiger claim to be providing cheap fares for those who actually get nothing in return is clearly false.

And it is patronising to suggest that Australians don’t understand low cost carriers given the rise of Virgin Blue and Jetstar in the years before Tiger arrived, and the substantial price competition from Qantas that has taken place.

What we don’t seem to understand is an airline that can’t be contacted and hasn’t mastered the corner shop art of reversing a credit charge charge in less than one minute.

The question has been asked here several times just what the majority stakeholder in Tiger, Singapore Airlines, thinks about the consumer disquiet about this unpleasant and unaccountable little outfit, and how inconsistently it sits with its own profile of being a top quality yet fiercely price competitive brand in the Australian market?

This needs fixing.

This statement was issued by Tiger late this afternoon:-

Tiger Airways apologises if its latest sale offer, which coincides with ANZAC Day weekend, may have caused any offence.

This was not at all intentional. Tiger Airways has contacted the RSL in this regard and has offered its apologies.

Tiger Airways is making a donation to the National RSL as a gesture of goodwill.