Tiger Aims to Eat into Qantas, Virgin Market by Adding 3,600 Seats Daily From New Sydney Base

Tiger Airways aims to roar louder in the regional aviation industry by attempting to eat into the market of leaders Qantas and Virgin Australian. The budget carrier aims to do that by adding 3,600 seats daily from its new Sydney base.

The new base will also create 150 new jobs. Tiger opened its new Sydney base on Sunday, July 1, 12 months after the Civil Aviation Safety Authority grounded the air carrier's fleet over safety concerns.

Tiger added four daily flights to the Sydney-Gold Coast route, which increased capacity by 1,400 seats, and will add services between Sydney and Brisbane in August.

It will also deploy three additional A320s from Terminal 2 of the Sydney domestic airport by October for a total of 11 daily return services in its bid to get a bigger slice of the domestic travel market. Tiger offered $40 air fare for the Sydney-Melbourne leg, said Tiger Chief Executive Andrew David.

He said breaking the duopoly enjoyed by the two carriers is not an impossible target.

"It's been a struggle for any airline to make it as the third carrier in this country. But we've gone from being the worst on-time performing airline in the country to the best for 10 months in a row," Mr David was quoted by News.com.au.

Mr David said he expects Jetstar and Virgin to offer similar lower airfares to the lucrative Sydney-Melbourne route, considered one of the busiest. Tiger is expanding its flights despite its parent company in Singapore losing 104 million in the last 12 months.

"The key for us to get back into the black is to get all our aircraft flying. We'll have our fleet fully utilised by October and then obviously the next challenge is to get to profit," he said.

Mr David added that by November, Tiger will boost its capacity by 60 per cent in the Melbourne-Hobart route to compete with Virgin and Jetstar which both added seats to the route.

"We have to keep working at it and working hard and making sure we get the message out with the public, because I don't think everybody is aware we're back and I don't think we've overcome all of the sins of the past," Mr David was quoted by The Australian.