Bogdan, one of my favourite characters out of the radio of old, although somewhat dim in the memory. Orphan boy, I think, adopted and raised by Bulgarian turnips. Sort of a Soviet-block Tarzan.

As regards (relatively) cheap air travel, I have not been able to fault DJ. And that's over a significant number of flights in the past 4 yrs. I used to fly Ansett and still would if they existed. Defaulted to QANTAS but, after they lost my bags three times on the trot on the same sector (eventually recovered - to be fair), I thought bugger this and tried VB. No complaints at all.

I will now only fly QANTAS if there is no alternative; wouldn't touch Jet with a barge pole - never have, never will. I've found a product that, while it's a compromise when compared with Ansett, delivers pretty good service for the dollars shelled out. It's a balance - I don't expect the earth (Ansett), but get reasonable value for the dollars spent. I really can't ask for more.

Maybe that's the problem with Tiger - I don't know, as I've never flown with them. If it's too cheap to be true, then maybe it is too cheap to be true.

As an aside, it is important to note that while you have lots of fine print in contracts from these people, who will like to quote it ad nauseum, civil law will often overrule some of the more unjust/unreasonable clauses and when tested they'll run a mile. Don't be put off by "the fine print" if it's unreasonable then it's unreasonable to the courts too, and judges fly as well.

Regards

I reckon the pram was nicked off the baggage conveyor by one of the onboard mullets on the same flight.

There are some good things about Tiger. Their A319s are all brand new and super quiet compared to some of the old Jetstar ones 320s. Do those things autoland, or are the pilots super good? Because everytime I fly Tiger I dont even realise when the wheels touch the ground, but with Jetstar its alwayus a fair thud.

I wonder how the singaporaians percieve Jetstar Asia...

Jetstar Asia is 51% owned by a Singaporean businessman (a Qantas proxy) and 49% owned by Qantas. For all purposes and intents, it is an Australian airline using a Singapore AOC to operate. Obviously Singapore's civil aviation authority realises this and accepts it. It was Temasek Holdings that sold its stake in Jetstar Asia to the Singaporean businessman anyway, so the Singapore establishment at large accepts this.

Jetstar Asia has already been competing with SIA for rights given to Singapore carriers. As a Singapore carrier, Jetstar Asia can use Singapore's very liberal rights to Europe, including operating unlimited frequencies to Stansted or Luton or Gatwick or Manchester if they so wished. Jetstar Asia's CEO said they're looking at operating medium to longhaul services from 2011 using A330s.

The average man in the street in Singapore probably doesn't care who owns Jetstar Asia, and will be pleased with the cheap fares that competition brings.

Qantas through Jetstar Asia has far more to gain from Singapore than SIA through Tiger Australia. Qantas through Jetstar Asia gets all of Singapore's rights to the EU (nearly open skies except France and Germany), soon-to-be ASEAN open skies, and nearly unlimited third and fourth freedom rights to China. That's India, China, South East Asia and the EU - more than half the world's population.

SIA through Tiger Australia gets...... 21 million people spread across a vast land mass.

Go figure who got the better deal!

Tiger must have got their staff from ex Telstra employees!

No try retrenched employees from Qantas and Ansett trying to make a living back in the industry in the GFC

Figure out who got the better deal? Jetstar operating A330s to Europe is all in the future and may or may not be a licence to print money. Australian traffic to Southern Europe has already switched to flying on Emirates and now Etihad - I think Jetstar has been scratching their head about how to serve Southern Europe for so long that they are leaving it too late. Routes to India already have so much capacity. There are new Indian carriers flying to SIN all the time - Kingfisher and Jet adding services. Jetstar tried Bangalore. I think current Qantas group policy is not to duplicate Qantas exisiting services, so not even into Stansted. Surely, even the 787 is not the right aircraft for a low cost operation to London, even if it has the range?

Meanwhile, Tiger has been in Australia for five minutes. On SYD-MEL they have come from nowhere to nine times a day. If they make friends with Brisbane Airport, they can start to build up the daily frequencies on the important short haul routes in SE Australia. If they start to sell day return business trips to people who travel at short notice, they will make money now, not in a few years time. If Virgin Blue feels the need to reinvent their inflight service, guess what, Tiger can do that as well, accepting that they want to keep things simple. Remember Easyjet is now an accpted way of travelling for business meetings.

Australia may be a country with only 21 people. It happens that Adelaide (1m), Brisbane (1m), Melbourne(3.5m) and Sydney (3.5) have 9 million of those people within an area the size of France. The distances are just a bit too far for Very High Speed Trains to be competitive. So, once Tiger have got the frequencies between those four cities, and add in Perth they should be happy. If they keep their fares at a nice price, there will be some cost conscious business travellers who will be able to fly more often.