Tiger out to prove it’s no poodle
Tony Davis of Tiger Airways sat next to a stuffed synthetic tiger when he launched the Singapore-based budget carrier’s bid to introduce domestic services within Australia.
Davis must be hoping that he doesn’t suffer a similar fate to the stuffed Tiger. Qantas boss Geoff Dixon is a big game hunter with a legendary reputation for pursuing a quarry to the death.
Dixon would like nothing better than to add another trophy to his collection of airlines that have challenged the flying kangaroo in its own backyard and ended up mortally wounded.
Only Virgin Blue, which entered Australia in 2000, has been able to survive alongside Qantas. But while Virgin Blue arrived full of promises to be a genuine low-cost carried, it has refined its product, opening lounges and encouraging corporate travellers, and with Qantas has become – in the words of Tiger’s Davis – part of “a cosy duopoly”.
Instead it is Qantas offshoot Jetstar which has become the genuine budget carrier in Australia and will be the airline that Qantas will use to confront Tiger Airways should the Australian government approve the Singapore carrier’s application to launch services from Perth to east coast Australia cities.
Tiger launches service between Singapore and Perth in Western Australia next month (it already flies to Darwin in the Northern Territory) and hopes to gain approval to use Perth as a base to connect to other Australian cities. It also sees opportunities in moving passengers from Australia onto tiger’s connecting services to six destinations in Asia.
What is especially interesting about Tiger’s proposed move into Australia’s domestic network is that Tiger is 49 percent owned by Singapore Airlines, a carrier which has been rebuffed on more than one occasion in its attempts to open up Australia’s skies to more competition.
Davis has rejected claims that Tiger’s entry into Australia is about Singaporean interests wanting to punish Jetstar and its parent, Qantas, for starting international low-cost services to Asian cities from Australia.
Tiger certainly has the backers in the shape on Temasek Holdings, Singapore’s state investment arm, and Ryanair founder Tony Ryan, to mount a formidable challenge to the incumbent airlines in airlines.
Another factor possibly in Tiger’s favour is that the flying kangaroo will be quite such a protected species if a private equity takeover of the Australian airline is successful.
It was only a matter of time before Qantas was challenged again on home soil – and this time Tiger appears to have the claws for the job.
-Ian Jarrett
Ian Jarrett
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