FFG 02
17th Sep 2009, 11:06
From The Age
Hadn't seen this on the TV show but wait with baited breath for the second season! Just love the last para!
A sting in the tail with $49 Tiger Airways flight | Fees | Fine print (http://www.theage.com.au/travel/traveller-tips/a-sting-in-the-tail-with-49-tiger-flight-20090909-fgu4.html)
Tony Wilson is thrilled with his $49 plane ticket but encounters some unexpected turbulence.
I'd like to get all the demurring "well, you get what you paid fors" out of the way right now. I'm especially thinking of older readers who remember when air travel wasn't just a luxury but an impossibility and it took six weeks to get to England by boat and everyone passed the time on deck playing quoits against Don Bradman, who was actually quite nice, if a little reserved and more than handy with quoit in hand.
Then, for a while, air travel became a luxury. The cutlery was heavy and the slippers white and soft. A beaming brigade of hostesses called men "sir" and women "madam" and because everyone was paying a small fortune it was only fair that passengers were offered the keys to the mini-bar. For those not old enough to benefit, it was all-you-can-drink lemonade and all-you-can-colour colouring books. Everyone was friendly and the seats were clean and the whole experience was just as pleasant as can be – for the tiny sliver of the population who could afford to fly.
Now we get handed an apple in a paper napkin. It's only as you're hovering over that tantalising first bite that you realise that the apple costs two bucks and the napkin a further $1.50. Not that I'm complaining.
We're in the post-luxury window between air fares becoming affordable and oil running out on October 24, 2016 (it's time somebody had a crack at naming a date).
For the family holiday from Melbourne to Maroochydore I pay $49 a ticket. Forty-nine dollars! A taxi to the airport costs more. A set of quoits costs more. Budget airlines are getting us there and just because they're getting us there with biscuit crumbs all over the seat doesn't mean this isn't a great leap forward. It's democratic pricing. It's an end to the bad old days of domestic duopoly. It's a few hours of discomfort as a means to a sunny end.
We decide to fly Tiger and read the ticket to learn that we have to be there a full hour before. The late arrival is the first trap for the budget-airline debutant. The carrier figures that as customers are paying less than the cost of a taxi to fly, it's only the cost of another taxi home if they're one minute late. We're 20 minutes early, which means we are in good time to find out the flight is running two hours late.
We are nevertheless invited by a grim-faced female employee to check in. My wife, Tamsin, has a handbag and a wheelie case. I have a laptop computer and a wheelie case. My two-year-old daughter, Polly, has a nappy bag and a case we are making her lug around like she is a chimney sweep in the Industrial Revolution. We also have a pram because my sister has told us that infant transportation won't count towards our 45-kilogram weight allocation. My sister should have read the fine print.
"You're over the weight," the woman at check-in murmurs. "She's two, so she's a normal paying customer. The pram counts."
We stare at the budget stroller. At $15 a kilogram, it weighs about the cost of a trip to London. We empty our bags on to the floor of the check-in lounge. Do we really need a litre of blackcurrant juice? One kilo back. Am I actually going to read the Penguin Classic edition of David Copperfield, or will I sneak a couple of peeks at Tam's Stephenie Meyer? Another kilo back.
Eventually, we come up with the masterstroke of transplanting half our luggage into our carry-on bags and, like saddle-laden jockeys tottering towards the scales, present ourselves again.
Our bags make the weight limit and after some last-minute name-tag scribbling, drift into conveyor-belt oblivion.
The next hour is largely unproductive time, during which Polly scoffs Vegemite sandwiches and I conduct clandestine searches of airport bookshops for copies of my own books. Eventually we spend half an hour trying to convince Polly that the Thomas the Tank Engine ride doesn't move, until another parent arrives and inserts $3 and gives the game away. Defeated, we give our screaming child a go and then another go and can happily report that Thomas is whirring around at the airport at the rate of 18 cents a second.
I hug Polly, trying to smooth over a further 15-minute delay with some nursery rhymes. We do Baa Baa Black Sheep. We do Mary Had a Little Lamb. We do Puff the Magic Dragon and do it with such sad conviction that nobody in the seats around will be forgiving Jackie Paper in a hurry.
Our plane is late because of fog. We aren't angry, we just want to get on the plane.
We eventually do board and we are greeted with a mashed sandwich under the seat. Still, you take the good with the bad. Someone's failure to clean the cabin also means that a Play School sticker book is stuffed among the safety brochures and that proves to be a lifesaver.
The plane behaves exactly as a plane should – taking off, landing, flying – doing the sorts of things that even the tightest of tightwads would have to admit is worth $49. We arrive in Maroochydore to blue skies, warm breezes and the exhilaration that comes from believing the travel ordeal is over and the holiday is beginning.
We don't so much mind Tiger losing our pram. It really is just an overblown pusher and it would have been a much greater disaster had they lost one of our other bags. And they are good at saying sorry. The amiable attendant on the service desk – let's call her Annika – apologises profusely and promises a nationwide search.
It will be returned to us, Annika promises. "I'll call to update you tomorrow," she says brightly. "Monday at the latest."
She calls on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The pram hasn't been found but she is so nice and attentive that it seems wrong to make a fuss. By Thursday she has become such a part of our holiday that we wonder whether to ask her over for dinner.
Annika is doing her best. Tiger is doing its best. "If we don't find it," Annika smiles, "you'll be able to make a claim. Just give it 21 days. You have to give it 21 days to see if it turns up."
A week later, we return home pramless but relaxed and happy and buoyed by the prospect of hitting Baby Bunting and getting Tiger to shout us a newer, sparklier pram. Another week passes and we hear just once from Annika. Still no pram but she is sending us a claim form.
When the form arrives, I learn that our incident number is LA70302 and that a loss adjuster called Charles Taylor Aviation has been appointed by Tiger to take over our case. The form seems to say that instead of waiting 21 days for our property to turn up, a claim has to be made within 21 days to be eligible for any compensation. I fill out the form with a sense of dread. Our notification of loss is more than two weeks late.
Did Annika make an honest mistake, or are Tiger staff being trained to encourage people to sit on claims until they expire? We send the form and wait for the inevitable.
"Dear Mr Wilson, We are sorry to hear of the loss of your pram and on behalf of Tiger Airways, we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused. We note that your pram was lost on 31 May 2009 but your notification of loss was sent on 9 July 2009 ... blah blah blah ... Clause 14.2 ... blah blah blah ... We trust that the position is clear but please feel free to contact us if you require any further clarification. Yours sincerely, Charles Taylor Aviation."
I pick up the phone to call Annika then realise I don't have the energy. You'll start off chasing the Tiger, revelling in the burst of adrenalin that comes from seeing that special low fare but then they'll find ways of making you pay.
Hadn't seen this on the TV show but wait with baited breath for the second season! Just love the last para!
A sting in the tail with $49 Tiger Airways flight | Fees | Fine print (http://www.theage.com.au/travel/traveller-tips/a-sting-in-the-tail-with-49-tiger-flight-20090909-fgu4.html)
Tony Wilson is thrilled with his $49 plane ticket but encounters some unexpected turbulence.
I'd like to get all the demurring "well, you get what you paid fors" out of the way right now. I'm especially thinking of older readers who remember when air travel wasn't just a luxury but an impossibility and it took six weeks to get to England by boat and everyone passed the time on deck playing quoits against Don Bradman, who was actually quite nice, if a little reserved and more than handy with quoit in hand.
Then, for a while, air travel became a luxury. The cutlery was heavy and the slippers white and soft. A beaming brigade of hostesses called men "sir" and women "madam" and because everyone was paying a small fortune it was only fair that passengers were offered the keys to the mini-bar. For those not old enough to benefit, it was all-you-can-drink lemonade and all-you-can-colour colouring books. Everyone was friendly and the seats were clean and the whole experience was just as pleasant as can be – for the tiny sliver of the population who could afford to fly.
Now we get handed an apple in a paper napkin. It's only as you're hovering over that tantalising first bite that you realise that the apple costs two bucks and the napkin a further $1.50. Not that I'm complaining.
We're in the post-luxury window between air fares becoming affordable and oil running out on October 24, 2016 (it's time somebody had a crack at naming a date).
For the family holiday from Melbourne to Maroochydore I pay $49 a ticket. Forty-nine dollars! A taxi to the airport costs more. A set of quoits costs more. Budget airlines are getting us there and just because they're getting us there with biscuit crumbs all over the seat doesn't mean this isn't a great leap forward. It's democratic pricing. It's an end to the bad old days of domestic duopoly. It's a few hours of discomfort as a means to a sunny end.
We decide to fly Tiger and read the ticket to learn that we have to be there a full hour before. The late arrival is the first trap for the budget-airline debutant. The carrier figures that as customers are paying less than the cost of a taxi to fly, it's only the cost of another taxi home if they're one minute late. We're 20 minutes early, which means we are in good time to find out the flight is running two hours late.
We are nevertheless invited by a grim-faced female employee to check in. My wife, Tamsin, has a handbag and a wheelie case. I have a laptop computer and a wheelie case. My two-year-old daughter, Polly, has a nappy bag and a case we are making her lug around like she is a chimney sweep in the Industrial Revolution. We also have a pram because my sister has told us that infant transportation won't count towards our 45-kilogram weight allocation. My sister should have read the fine print.
"You're over the weight," the woman at check-in murmurs. "She's two, so she's a normal paying customer. The pram counts."
We stare at the budget stroller. At $15 a kilogram, it weighs about the cost of a trip to London. We empty our bags on to the floor of the check-in lounge. Do we really need a litre of blackcurrant juice? One kilo back. Am I actually going to read the Penguin Classic edition of David Copperfield, or will I sneak a couple of peeks at Tam's Stephenie Meyer? Another kilo back.
Eventually, we come up with the masterstroke of transplanting half our luggage into our carry-on bags and, like saddle-laden jockeys tottering towards the scales, present ourselves again.
Our bags make the weight limit and after some last-minute name-tag scribbling, drift into conveyor-belt oblivion.
The next hour is largely unproductive time, during which Polly scoffs Vegemite sandwiches and I conduct clandestine searches of airport bookshops for copies of my own books. Eventually we spend half an hour trying to convince Polly that the Thomas the Tank Engine ride doesn't move, until another parent arrives and inserts $3 and gives the game away. Defeated, we give our screaming child a go and then another go and can happily report that Thomas is whirring around at the airport at the rate of 18 cents a second.
I hug Polly, trying to smooth over a further 15-minute delay with some nursery rhymes. We do Baa Baa Black Sheep. We do Mary Had a Little Lamb. We do Puff the Magic Dragon and do it with such sad conviction that nobody in the seats around will be forgiving Jackie Paper in a hurry.
Our plane is late because of fog. We aren't angry, we just want to get on the plane.
We eventually do board and we are greeted with a mashed sandwich under the seat. Still, you take the good with the bad. Someone's failure to clean the cabin also means that a Play School sticker book is stuffed among the safety brochures and that proves to be a lifesaver.
The plane behaves exactly as a plane should – taking off, landing, flying – doing the sorts of things that even the tightest of tightwads would have to admit is worth $49. We arrive in Maroochydore to blue skies, warm breezes and the exhilaration that comes from believing the travel ordeal is over and the holiday is beginning.
We don't so much mind Tiger losing our pram. It really is just an overblown pusher and it would have been a much greater disaster had they lost one of our other bags. And they are good at saying sorry. The amiable attendant on the service desk – let's call her Annika – apologises profusely and promises a nationwide search.
It will be returned to us, Annika promises. "I'll call to update you tomorrow," she says brightly. "Monday at the latest."
She calls on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The pram hasn't been found but she is so nice and attentive that it seems wrong to make a fuss. By Thursday she has become such a part of our holiday that we wonder whether to ask her over for dinner.
Annika is doing her best. Tiger is doing its best. "If we don't find it," Annika smiles, "you'll be able to make a claim. Just give it 21 days. You have to give it 21 days to see if it turns up."
A week later, we return home pramless but relaxed and happy and buoyed by the prospect of hitting Baby Bunting and getting Tiger to shout us a newer, sparklier pram. Another week passes and we hear just once from Annika. Still no pram but she is sending us a claim form.
When the form arrives, I learn that our incident number is LA70302 and that a loss adjuster called Charles Taylor Aviation has been appointed by Tiger to take over our case. The form seems to say that instead of waiting 21 days for our property to turn up, a claim has to be made within 21 days to be eligible for any compensation. I fill out the form with a sense of dread. Our notification of loss is more than two weeks late.
Did Annika make an honest mistake, or are Tiger staff being trained to encourage people to sit on claims until they expire? We send the form and wait for the inevitable.
"Dear Mr Wilson, We are sorry to hear of the loss of your pram and on behalf of Tiger Airways, we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused. We note that your pram was lost on 31 May 2009 but your notification of loss was sent on 9 July 2009 ... blah blah blah ... Clause 14.2 ... blah blah blah ... We trust that the position is clear but please feel free to contact us if you require any further clarification. Yours sincerely, Charles Taylor Aviation."
I pick up the phone to call Annika then realise I don't have the energy. You'll start off chasing the Tiger, revelling in the burst of adrenalin that comes from seeing that special low fare but then they'll find ways of making you pay.