I am the original poster, and I do want to thank all of you for your knowledgeable and friendly responses to my earlier question. It is a good thing to be able to draw upon such a pool of knowledge on matters so far from home.

I checked out Tiger Airways schedule & price as compared to Australian Airlines: both have horrible four-times-weekly schedules that depart from Singapore late at night and arrive in Darwin at dawn. The two differences I found were in the fares charged and the excess baggage fees.

Tiger has a discount fare that amounts to about US$202 all in; the best that I could find on Australian was about US$298 all in. I always travel with the kitchen sink from New York, so I simply prepare myself for excess baggage fees. Tiger's excess baggage fee was fairly reasonable and would work out to about US$30-40 for me each way; Australian's excess baggage fee was much higher and would work out to nearly US$100 each way.

So, I took the plunge and purchased online with Tiger Airways, for flights in late May coming. I'll keep you posted as to the flight experiences later this spring.

Once again, thanks very much.