Merged: Tiger Tales

[alangirvan]

So how much has Tiger lost playing around in the Australian backyard? Probably not as much as the Qantas group will have to write off if they are forced to walk away from Jetstar Pacific. If they do walk away, I do not think Tiger will be rushing in to take their place.

[Whiskery]

If they do not start making money, I reckon Tiger (Oz) will be out of business before the end of the financial year. (30th June 2010) !

Despite comment to the contrary, SQ do not like losing money and they may have a bottomless pit, but they will never throw good after bad!

[Kev9]

'I reackon this, I reaykon that, you so dumb...

The recipe is Pure RyanAir and the cook is SIA.

Now that is really dumb, aye bro...

This operation is 2 years old in AU and their loads are amazing.
To use a drug analogy, they have now hooked their users.
They will double their fleet, AGAIN, in the next 12 months in AU.
Again, read the RyanAir mantra... but you too dumb bro...

[Muff Hunter]

kev9,

you miss the point here.......EU is alot bigger than oz, with many more places to fly (can sustain a ryan air concept) while oz is at the point of market saturation.

Tiger could get another 30a/c but at the current ticket price would make fark all.

History tells us their has only ever been room for 2 maybe 3 carriers.

[Going Boeing]

Kev9
and their loads are amazing

Loads don't mean a thing to an airline surviving - the yield has to be high enough to pay all the bills.

[Al E. Vator]

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.

[Sunstar320]

SQ might have deep pockets, but they are not injecting anymore capital into Tiger. SQ are not going to keep flogging a dead horse, and since Tiger have pushed past -40million, no more money for Tiger they say. Going public is the only chance Tiger has to fund the next 50+ A320's that need to be financed within the next 3-4yrs.

there is no way that tgr oz are making money with 6 a/c at the prices they charge for tickets!

You think that every seat is sold sub $50? Sure, mabye on some dead days like Tue/Wed there is a greater availability of these, but its not easy to grab a $40 fare the rest of the week. Dont forget about Baggage/Seat/Oversize/Sports/CreditCard fees. As well as Ancillary revenue such as Buy on Board and Travel Insurance. Plenty of ways for Tiger to earn revenue besides the $39 fares. Tiger also get signifcantly more incentives than the others, particulary from the Adelaide Government who are paying Tiger to be there. Plus I heard that they got a good deal from Tulla and Brumby. See how they operate behind the scenes in comparison to other LCC and you get the drift of how low their cost base is.

Al E. Vator, Kev9..dont worry, Muff is just one of those 15 year old kids who just happens knows everything bout' the industry. . .

[Muff Hunter]

i hope i am wrong......................but we'll revist this in 12 months or so and you'll all find that i'm right..............again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Darwinism]

I'm often tempted to give up on PPrune, tired of the uninformed drivel/speculation that often passes for posts here. Then someone like AI E. Vator or Sunstar320 post an intelligent message that makes me believe that, yes, there are still some who actually make this site worth coming back to - thank you.

[Metro man]

Tiger are currently looking at an Initial Public Offering of US$500 million
Tiger Airways Mulls IPO Next Year - WSJ.com

Should be enough to finance a bit of expansion and keep them going for a while.

[3 Holer]

I can't see Mum & Dad investors or Institutions throwing their hard earned into Tiger. A foreign Company with an abysmal PR department and no prospect of reasonable dividends.

Let's face it, VB hasn't returned a reasonable dividend since November 05 and they are now very well established. Interest rates going up, why would you invest in Airline stock?

I may be wrong.

[slice]

hmmm... yes they're mulling over it. As in

Tiger board CEO: "Oh F**K we're gonna need $500 mil to get through next year"

Tiger board member: "Hey I know, let's have one of those IPO thingy's to see how much cash we can pull in from the suckers!"

[Transition Layer]

3 Holer,

A foreign Company with an abysmal PR department and no prospect of reasonable dividends.

I think you'll find the listing would on the Singapore Stock Exchange, not Australia.

[PPRuNeUser0161]

So they have been here nearly two years and still no profit, lets not forget we had a major downturn thrown in. It looks to me like they have taken a measured approach to any expansion in OZ and lets face it, they basically have no chance of being in the black until more aircraft arrive.

It all comes down to how long are they are willing to hang on. On the other hand what would be the impact on SIA and RA should they decide to can it here? Where would that leave them and can they really afford to lose this one in the big picture?

SN

[MrSheffield]

I don't see Tiger canning their oz operation...

They do sell the cheapest airfares in Australia and this is catching on quite quickly despite the negative publicity they seem to attract. I recall Jetstar copping the same flak when they first started. The truth is that their load factors are quite high so this must be a positive, im sure the beancounters set the airfares just high enough to ensure +ve yield. They did state from the very beginning that they dont expect to make profit for for a few years, but have stated that the Australian operation is ahead of where it was supposed to be. This could be a lie but have to look at the facts and that is they have survived 2 years and are growing. They started 2 years ago downunder with 3 aircraft and 1 base. Now its 7 aircraft (+ 1 to come in Jan and rumors of 30 by the next 5 years) and 2 bases (3rd coming soon?), adding Brisbane to the network, and opening up routes to destinations originating not from MEL/ADL (SYD-OOL, BNE-ROK) so they continued to grow despite the GFC or whatever its called.

I remember 2 years ago we were giving them a lifespan of 6 months...

[Sunstar320]

There is no doubt that Tiger Australia is improving financially. Tiger were losing $10 million a month when they started in November 2009 for their first 4 months of operating here, which would have sent them to the wall if that continued (Tiger Singapore was profitable during this period), and with only 3 Aircraft during this period it seemed a disaster. This previous year shows a loss of around $2 million per month and considering they have bedded down their operations now. Putting into consideration extreme fuel prices, low demand in some months, I wouldn't think Tiger Australia would be fully responsible for that $22m loss, as those fuel prices would have hit harder up north when putting their network into the picture and the amount of longer haul flights TR does. Low demand seems to impacting harder up there, and Tiger Singapore has reduced alot of flights and pulled out of a few places whilst still retreating some of their Malaysian routes (AirAsia is doing the same too). But TR has been proven as significantly profitable considering their first ever profit managed to hit SG$40million.

Since then 8 months has passed and you could say they have doubled in size, Sydney has started, a new base has commenced, extra frequencies everywhere, shocking TV show showing their brand, more advertising, another A320 has landed in Melbourne, and Sheffield said their brand is growing and loads are growing. Chopping some low pax routes from Adelaide is a good start, looks like the Melbourne to Rockhampton service is gone, and Canberra looks as finished come next year. Getting rid of these in the short term will help acheive a profit sooner, returning to these ports when the brand is profitable and expanded in a few years would be more logical. I dont know if they are just in Canberra for strategic reasons, but they are to small to be sending their aircraft here, and the market is not great from Adelaide and Melbourne is also quite slow at times it has seemed. Adelaide to Hobart is another melon, released figures show its average loading is just less than 60%. They would be giving Virgin a headache in Adelaide. Killed them to Hobart, doing the same to Canberra, and to the Gold coast which was downgraded to E190 and is commonly canceled. All of a sudden 3 extra ADL-SYD sectors have popped up between JQ/TT which would be affecting DJ's 4/5 Daily more than their Melbourne ops. Yet Tiger now throwing in Brisbane by subsidizing Melbourne to Coolangatta is 1 Daily is suicide. You cannot grow this route to four daily slowly then just retreat one of the countries and Tiger most busiest route. I dont know the logic in this nor if this is the sign of a new Gold Coast base, but it is showing the full 3 Daily on weekends so I am skeptical about anymore additions.

Im no financial guru, but we might see a small profit from Tiger Australia for this current March09/March10 year. Otherwise it would be a smaller loss, possibly a loss bigger up north than down south seing fleet numbers are just about level at both. But who knows, they would be losing some significant amounts out of Malaysia and out of Sydney to Melbourne at the moment.

[limelight]

Tiger??

Just view it as a piece of the international puzzle.

Who in their right mind wants to fly Tiger unless they are willing to sacrifice time waiting for the late flight, or worse still, the canceled flight. There is zero business traffic. So, it wil always be a low profit entity while JQ is around.

So, wait for the talks that trade off Tiger AU against Jetstar Asia.

Worse still, a linkup with SQ and QF, now that would be not in anyone's interest, but very plausible.

Scary.

[PPRuNeUser0161]

Big Picture!

Limelight
I agree, the big picture is what is to be looked at here. I dont think there will be any trade-off between QF,J* and SIA though, no way J* is going to leave Tiger Asia alone, its important to the QF global network. My thinking is that SIA have got a lot to lose if they are not successful with Tiger in Australia, after all it's their J*. If this is the case I don't think Tiger or J* will be a casualty, that job will be left to someone else.

SN

[apacau]

Sunstar - good analysis except that I think the reason for reduced MEL-OOL and no MEL-CBR etc is more due to the fact that they haven't finalised their northern summer timetable than an indication of what is to come. Whilst you can't always believe what they have to say, they have indicated that they are committed to a daily MEL-CBR, for example (though ADL-CBR is gone).

[Sunstar320]

What Tiger really wants its International rights ex Australia, they have stated this in the past. Going public will make this possible. Talking from Perth, Darwin, Cairns. We wont see 30 A320's on Domestic, some will go International within that 5hr radius.