Tigerair

Tiger Airways Singapore Pte Ltd

IATA TR ICAO TGW Callsign GO CAT
Founded	12 December 2003 (as Tiger Airways)
Hubs	Singapore Changi Airport
Fleet size	27
Destinations	36
Parent company	Tiger Airways Holdings
Headquarters	Singapore
Key people	Ho Yuen Sang (Managing Director and Chief Operations Officer)
Website	www.tigerair.com

Tiger Airways Singapore Pte Ltd, operating as Tigerair, is a low-cost airline headquartered in Singapore. It operates services to regional destinations in Southeast Asia, Australia, China and India from its main base at Singapore Changi Airport.

It has its head office in the Honeywell Building in Changi, Singapore,^[1] and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tiger Airways Holdings.

Tigerair won the CAPA Low Cost Airline of the Year Award for 2006 and 2010.

History

Establishment

Former Tiger Airways branding

Tiger Airways Singapore was incorporated on 12 December 2003 and began ticket sales on 31 August 2004. Services commenced on 15 September 2004 to Bangkok. Scheduled international services are operated from Singapore Changi Airport. The airline is a subsidiary of Tiger Airways Holdings, a Singapore based company.

In 2006, the airline flew 1.2 million passengers, a growth of 75% from the previous year.

The airline was the first to operate from the Budget Terminal at Changi Airport as part of its cost-saving operations structure, similar to Ryanair's. Despite regional competition, the airline has reiterated its current intention to remain focused on flying within a five-hour radius from its Singaporean base.

As of 25 September 2012, Tigerair Singapore operates from Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 2 due to the demolition of the Budget Terminal to make way for Terminal 4, due to be completed in 2017.

Route Strategy

The airline flew into a period of relative difficulty for the aviation industry with rising oil prices and intense competition from other airlines. The airline held off imposing fuel surcharges as its competitors had done.

With Singapore Airlines having a stake in the airline, the airline occasionally fills in the gap when SIA drops its services from certain destinations. Macau, once served by SIA before being taken up by its subsidiary, SilkAir, in 2002, terminated all flights completely by the end of 2004. Three months later, the route was taken over by Tigerair with flights commencing 25 March 2005. A similar pattern can be observed in Krabi, where SilkAir suspended services in February 2005 in the wake of the effects of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Tigerair resumed direct services to the location from 7 October 2005.

In late July 2005, it was announced that the airline would commence flights from Macau to Manila (Clark) on 30 October 2005, a much-heralded move as it may signal the establishment of a secondary base besides Singapore, allowing the airline to expand and diversify risks.

On 21 September 2005 the company produced a report card on its first year of operations, with a total of over 500,000 passengers carried, 5000 scheduled flights flown, and a flight completion rate of 98.7 per cent. 94 per cent of flight departures and 90 per cent of arrivals took place according to schedule. It acquired four aircraft and launched a total of nine routes – of which four are flown exclusively by the airline – during the year.

The airline expected to increase its fleet to nine Airbus A320 aircraft by end 2006, and to carry up to three million passengers a year by then. It also hoped to add six more routes during the year, primarily to destinations in China and India, with flights to Southern China having commenced April.

The airline also announced its switch from Singapore Airport Terminal Services to Swissport for ground handling once it became the first airline to operate at the newly opened Budget Terminal in Changi Airport on 26 March 2006.

Tigerair became the first Singaporean low-cost carrier to receive operating permits from the Chinese aviation authorities to fly to the southern Chinese cities of Haikou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in an announcement on 21 February 2006. Ticket sales to these destinations commenced 24 February 2006, with the first flight to Shenzhen taking place on 15 April, to Haikou from 26 April and to Guangzhou from 27 April 2006. The airline has since indicated that the routes were highly popular, with increased flights to Haikou and Guangzhou less than three months since their launch.

In June 2006, flights to Da Nang were suspended. On 20 July 2006, the media reported on the airline's intentions to increase its routes from 15 to 20 and to establish a second base city by the end of the year. Possible growth regions included China, Southern India, Cambodia and Brunei.

The airline's plan for a possible initial public offering was also revealed. At the same time, it announced that it saw an increase of 81 per cent in passengers carried in the months of April to June since its move to the Budget Terminal in March, compared to the same period in the previous year. Tigerair started services from Singapore to Perth on 23 March 2007.

On 25 October 2010, Tigerair announced that they will withdraw from Bangalore effective 14 November 2010, citing no reason. Tigerair resumed its flights between Singapore and Bangalore from 31 October 2011.

Tigerair may begin service to Adisumarmo in Surakarta in 2014 or 2015; SilkAir announced that it will stop operating its service to Solo. Additionally proposed routes include: Xiamen, Shanghai-Pudong, Goa, Kolkata and General Santos which was scheduled to begin in 2015 and will increase daily and weekly service to many other cities. The carrier will begin to serve all these routes with its currently ordered A320neo aircraft. As part of this strategy, Tigerair halted its service to Bandung on 26 October 2014 and Perth on 8 February 2015.

Destinations

Tigerair currently flies from Singapore to 35 destinations within an approximate five-hour radius around the region.

Codeshare agreements

Tigerair has a codeshare agreement with:

• Golden Myanmar Airlines

Corporate management

Tigerair Singapore is wholly owned by Tiger Airways Holdings Limited, a holding company set up in 2007 to manage both Tiger Airways and start-up Australian subsidiary Tigerair Australia. Tigerair' original founding shareholders were Singapore Airlines (49%), Bill Franke's Indigo Partners (24%); Tony Ryan's Irelandia Investments (16%) and Temasek Holdings (11%).^[2] Tiger Airways Holdings Limited is listed on SGX since 2010.

According to the 2014 Annual Report, the main shareholder in Tiger Airways Holdings is:^[3]

• Singapore Airlines Limited (40%)

Business trends

The following table shows the business trends of Tigerair Singapore, excluding other Tigerair subsidiaries and associated airlines.

	Year ending 31 March:
	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
Total Revenue (S$m)	268.0	277.9	341.8	460.9	611.0	639.0	TBA
Operating Profit (S$m)	12.2	25.0	53.8	−16.0	57.0	−59.0	TBA
Passengers booked (thousands)				3,903	4,393	5,068	5,140
- passenger change year-on-year					12.6%	15.4%	1.4%
Passenger load factor (%)			85.4	81.0	84.3	78.1	82.1
Number of aircraft (at year end)	9	10	14	18	20	27	27
Sources	[4]	[4][5]	[5]	[6]	[6][7]	[8][9]	[10][11]

Fleet

As of 31 March 2015, the Tigerair fleet consists of the following aircraft:^[12]

On 21 June 2007, Tigerair announced it had signed a letter of intent to purchase 30 aircraft worth US$2.2 billion, with another 20 on option. These would be delivered between 2011 and 2014.^[13] On 10 October, Tigerair confirmed the letter of intent signed in June. The new aircraft will be deployed in Tigerair's Asia-Pacific network and the domestic operation in Australia.^[14] On 18 December 2007, Tigerair announced that it had taken up the options and made further orders to take their fleet of Airbus A320s to 70 in total.^[15] Tigerair may continue renew its fleet.

On 24 March 2014, Tigerair signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Airbus for the purchase of 37 Airbus A320neo aircraft with 13 options. The aircraft will be powered by Pratt & Whitney PW1100 engines.

In-flight

Seating

All aircraft offer single-class economy seating of 144 and 180 seats in the Airbus A319 and A320 aircraft respectively. The seat pitch is approximately 72.5 cm (28.5 in) for standard rows and 97.5 cm (38.4 in) for exit rows and seat width of approximately 46 cm (18 in).

Food and beverage

Tigerair offers food and beverages available for purchase as part of a buy on board programme - Tiger Bites.^[16] The menu offers light meals such as instant noodles, soups and sandwiches. Hot and cold beverages as well as liquor are also available for purchase.

Entertainment

An in-flight magazine, Tiger Tales, is provided as free reading material for passengers.

See also

• Tiger Airways Holdings
• Tigerair Mandala
• Tigerair Australia
• Tigerair Philippines
• Tigerair Taiwan
• Tiger Group destinations

References

• Mb.com.ph

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tigerair.

• Tigerair
• Tiger Tales inflight magazine

Airlines of Singapore Passenger airlines Jetstar Asia History Valuair Scoot SilkAir Singapore Airlines History Corporate affairs Tigerair Cargo airlines Singapore Airlines Cargo Defunct Jett8 Airlines Malaysia-Singapore Airlines Saber Air