Because of the poor financial performance of Virgin Australia, the air carrier has made an about face on its plan to expand the Tiger fleet under its planned buy-out of the budget airline.

John Borghetti, chief executive of Virgin Australia, said he would not be held to his previous plan to expand the Tiger fleet in Australia. When Virgin agreed to purchase a 60 per cent stake of Tiger in October from its Singaporean owners, Mr Borghetti cited the benefit to passengers of a plan to increase Tiger's jets to 35 by 2018 from the current 11 to justify the acquisition.

"We're in a very volatile industry, there's no way we could ever give an undertaking that that is definite - in fact, it would be unrealistic (for the regulator) to ask for one," The Australian Financial Review quoted Mr Borghetti.

"Our plan is to grow up to 35 aircraft in five years but I don't know what's going to happen in six months, 12 months, 18 months . . . You can't give an iron-clad guarantee on something like that . . . of course, no, we wouldn't agree to that," he added.

Mr Borghetti cited on Tuesday the 37 per cent decline in Virgin's half-year earnings as the reason behind the about face on the expansion plans.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is scheduled to release its final decision on the Tiger buy-out on March 14.

In a hearing conducted by the ACCC on the takeover, Australian Airport Association Chief Executive Caroline Wilkie said Tiger's presence is needed in the Australian aviation market to ensure competition in the budget segment and keep fares low, despite weak profit and its single-digit market share.

If the Tiger-Virgin deal is rejected by the regulator, Australian airports warned of the impact of such a decision since Tiger services 12 Australian routes.

Even Qantas has slowed down in its expansion plans and had cancelled orders for Dreamliner jets, which boosted the flag carrier's financial standing.

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