Muff Hunter - for goodness sake who are you trying to convice? Yourself perhaps?
For years I have watched as the armchair PPRUne experts gave their judgements about everything. "The new Virgin Blue will never last". No legacy carrier has ever created a low-cost and succeeded, so "Jetstar is doomed to fail".
So when you dish out expert comment such as 'there is no way Tiger can make money with those airfares' etc are you fully informed of their yeild management systems and their cost/benefit programme or are you just noise?
"History tells us there is room for 2 or maybe 3 carriers". What history - the 18 years since deregulation? Hardly a statistically significant period? In any case that's what there is right now! QF/JQ, VS and Tiger.
Tiger is backed by Singapore Airlines (who have an issue with saving face and teaching the Australian Government a lesson for restricting them from geater access to the Australian market) as well as the folks behind Ryaniar; whilst they might be unpleasant individuals clearly know a thing or two about running low-cost airlines.
The major point is there are lots of negativity peddlars and naysayers on this website (usually those naieve enough to form some bond with a different corporate entity), who take delight in knocking new players.
Invariably they have been wrong about the potential of a new airline. Invariably they never admit it.