OT: Passengers up in arms over cancellation of Tiger Airways flight
 

Source: ChannelNewsAsia

There was a plane load of disgruntled passengers at Changi Airport when their 8.15am Tiger Airways flight to Bangkok was cancelled.

Many of the 180 passengers say they had expected better service. Tiger Airways says that the flight was cancelled because of an electrical fault with the aircraft in Bangkok.

24 passengers accepted refunds; the rest were put on the afternoon flight, which was already full. Thus some from the afternoon flight were pushed to the night flight. - CNA

That's such a tragedy.

Why did they not put them on SQ or TG? I would have invoked the suasive variant of the U.S. Rule 240.

There is a report in the Straits Times, Singapore newspaper on the 3 budget airlines operating in Singapore. You may wish to read about them at this board:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=367583

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Sorry..I didn't quite understand why a plane in Singapore wouldn't take off because a plane in Thailand had a problem. But then I realized that it was the same plane.... . CNA could have written this a little better :D

Of the current two LCC operating out of SIN with one more along the way, (Tiger, Valuair and soon JetStar Asia).. shall we predict to see who will fold first?

With majority of the flights only to BKK and nowhere else... isn't this an oversaturation of the market and situation. Very poor PR in terms of the above article... they could have put them on another airline.

It's an interesting race, isn't it... but I'd wager ValuAir is the weakest of the three. Air Asia already has its model down pat, and while Tiger seems like a recipe for disaster (based on what I hear of the load factors) those behind it have deep pockets. JetStar hasn't even announced their destinations yet so it's a little early to tell.

I disagree, Valuair act is actually making a lot of sense by providing a little more service (and food) and keeping prices down. Its fares to BKK are still very competitive and most passengers don't mind paying 20% more than Tiger to be treated like a human being.

Valuair is also launching SIN-PER at S$350 in Dec.. which is about 50% cheaper than the SQ or QF flights. With added pitch of 34" and inflight entertainment. Go figure.. :)

A quick check on fares returned the following (using weekdays - out Mon, back Wed)

Valuair
Dep SIN 07-Nov 1740hrs; arr PER 2305hrs (VF102)
Dep PER 09-Nov 2355hrs; arr SIN 0530hrs (VF101)
Fare: S$610 + S$146 taxes => total fare = S$746.00

Qantas
Dep SIN 07-Nov 0850hrs; arr PER 1350hrs (QF072)
Dep PER 09-Nov 1650hrs; arr SIN 2135hrs (QF071)
Fare: S$780 + S$169 taxes => total fare = S$949.00

I didn't embark on an exhaustive search on various date combinations to find the S$350 fares, but if that's any indication to go by, VF comes in around S$200 cheaper. BUT, the schedule is not particularly appealing with QF being substantially more "traveller-friendly" :)

If you're a QF Frequent Flyer (Gold/Platium) or One World equivalent, you also have the advantage of Qantas Pub (Club), and accruing miles & status credits. (Dislaimer: no intention to plug QF)

http://www.valuair.com.sg/sinfares_per.html

Food for thought anyway - cheers.

But ValuAir lacks the deep pockets behind the other airlines. I'm fairly sure that with the current price war, none of the LCCs flying from Singapore are making money now or will make any in the short term, so the players with the biggest piggy banks will be left standing.

ValuAir's special fares are $350, their average fare is $420 and fully flexible fare is $620.

SQ's fully flexible is $650 (1 to go with miles) 2 to go at $550 and 4 to go at $450.

SQ had specials on SQ225 (relaunched thrice weekly to PER in Nov) for $368 but they've all been snapped up.

Business pax will still choose SQ/QF because of schedule and miles. If you have a family of 4, you would rather take SQ at $450 rather than VF at $420.

QF's fares are comparable to SQ.

QF flies 10 times a week to Singapore from Perth. SQ flies 17 times. Most pax in both airlines connect in SIN onwards to Asia/Europe with their respective airlines.

I really wonder how VF will be able to face mighty QF/SQ on this route. Firstly, it's not that high yield, secondly, most of their pax connect through SIN to other destinations.

VF argues that their PER flights feed into their BKK, CGK and HKG flights ex SIN. QF/SQ fly from 7 destinations in Australia to feed into many Asian and European destinations ex SIN, which is why QF/SQ can do so profitably.

A lone A320 from PER will hardly generate feed to a single/double daily service to BKK, HKG or CGK respectively.

Plus, VF isn't even *that* cheap. 5 hours with a boxed meal of fried noodles and a muffin would be rather unbearable I think!

One place where VF wins over SQ is with child fares. A friend of mine flew VF to HKG earlier this year because even though the adult fares for SQ and VF were the same, SQ was charging $240 vs VF's $60 for a child fare.

No brainer for her.

One of the SIN based LCC's is hoping to start flights from SIN to SGN and possibly HAN, on a code-share basis. The reason I somewhat bizarrely know this is I heard a discussion in the Hilton in SIN a few weeks ago between the 2 airlines proposing it. From what I could gather from the discussion about each other's fleet and employee numbers, it sounded like Valuair and Pacific.

Most of SQ's 2toTravel and 4toTravel fares do NOT allow mileage accrual. So that defeats the purpose of MRs. But what SQ does offer is comfort, IFE, and good service on a LARGE airplane as opposed to the LCC's A320s.