I'll never fly a LCC because...
 

Article from: Herald Sun

A TIGER Airways passenger has told of his and other passengers' frustration after they were stranded in Hobart for three days due to a flight cancellation.
Police guarded Tiger Airways staff while they announced to a crowd of angry passengers they would be stranded in Hobart for three days on Friday night, the Herald Sun reports.

Passenger Mike Walters said he and his wife were effectively abandoned after the cancellation.

“We were isolated in a hotel at Cambridge airport some 17km from Hobart without any local shops or supplies,” Mr Walters said.

Mr Walters said he forked out for a flight back to Melbourne yesterday on Virgin Blue because he could not wait until today, particularly as he had run out of medication.

“To add to our irritation we had to pay for alternative accommodation, transport, interstate telephone calls to family and the Tiger call centre and meals out of our own pocket with the promise of an unspecified refund in two months' time,” Mr Walters said.

“We know of other passengers on our flight who missed interstate connections to family weddings, including one best man.

“We were also unable to meet our soon to be daughter in law from Singapore, as we had planned to meet her flight at Tullamarine that same evening to welcome her and drive her home.”

Flight TT567 out of Hobart was cancelled after a flight attendant became ill, and no replacement staff were available.

A passenger who was to return to Melbourne on that flight said federal police arrived at the terminal about 9.30pm on Friday night before the announcement was delayed. (sic - should that be "before the delay was announced"?)

Passengers stranded in Hobart are due to arrive in Melbourne tonight.

Tiger Airways has been contacted for comment and will be issuing a statement shortly.

Sometimes the Tiger does indeed bite you!

Its the total Management Incompetence in this airline that is getting them nowhere.

They could have done the following:
-Send another aircraft out at 11pm or 1am. Their is neither a curfew at both ends. Just get them damn home. Most Tiger A320's end their day at 11pm~. Not even reschedule another flight the next morning at 6am? Its only a 3.5hr run.
-Did the FA not know they would be that damn sick?. You cant tell me that he/she had a sudden meltdown when the HBA run came.

Not even Ryanair, AirAsia, Easyjet do this to their pax. But Tiger Management just dont have the sense, its all about saving that money, yet it continues to blowout into the media and destroy them when they think they are always making the right (wrong to us) decision....

Would be good if some shareholders came along and sacked a few people right about....now:ooh:

And you all believe this is exactly what happened because of what passenger Mike Walters said according to that highly reputable newspaper The Herald-Sun? :ugh:

You Get What You Pay For!!!! Ffs!!!!!!

j3pipercub,
Amen to that. :ok:

j3pipercub that goes double for me.

Joe public wants cake and to eat it. Joe public wants to fly around in a brand new jet at prices that wouldn't buy a railway ticket in 1986 for and expects everything to go smoothly always.

Get Real - You want ultralow fares? Suffer the consequences.

Yeah well said MR Hat, Ill second that... :suspect:

Since when do the AFP protect airline staff from the consequences of announcements that may irritate?

I hope MY tax dollars aren't funding this :yuk:

You want service?

PAY FOR IT!!

As others have said, you get what you pay for, you want full service, then fly with a full service airline. :ok:

IF you fly with a LCC then you should expect problems sometimes. :(

Just saw this on one of the news sites.

-----------------------------------------------------

Tiger Airways consumer communications manager Vanessa Regan said the Hobart to Melbourne flight was cancelled when a cabin crew member suddenly fell ill and required emergency medical treatment.

“Unfortunately we do not have a crew base in Hobart and so no replacement was available (and) we need a certain amount of cabin crew to fly each flight by law.”

--------------------------------------------------------

After a lifetime in Airlines I will never understand this, I have seen it also at so called full service Airlines, NOT just LCCs.

While I understand there are minimum crew requirements, why on Earth (in this case) couldn't the aircraft operate the flight even with a reduced pax load, even with say only half the number of pax that were booked on it, at least they could have taken pax with connecting flights, compassionate cases, maybe people with kids etc???

NOT having a go at Tiger, as I said I have seen it before sadly at ANother Airline.

If that was the case then why didn't they simply fly out another crew member on another carrier to Hobart so they can legally fly the aircraft with the pax back to Melbourne.
Tiger Air you should hang your head in shame.

:Ecrikey!
F.A became so suddenly ill?
surely she could have just 'toughened up princess'! :}
don't breed 'em like they used to :E

When I first read about this I asked myself why didn't they operate with fewer CC and PAX, or fly in another CC.

Then wondered if they had a policy not to so due to the knock on delays ie their ight tschedule couldn't handle re-sorting the PAX, luggage or the wait for a new CC.

One option I can't see Tiger doing due to their use of low cost contractors but would benefit from is having some ground crew in remote stations with min CC certification.

Does anyone know if the plane departed on time?

Cheers

Yes windytown, similar questions:

1. Did the aircraft depart with any pax at all?

2. With the one CC ill, were they thus unable to meet the requirement to have one CC per cabin zone?

3. Most likely no chance to get another cabin crew there on another carrier at that time of night.

So, considering points 2 and 3, did they fly the aircraft back empty so as to have it in position for the next day's schedule and disown the passengers?

A pretty p!ss poor effort and typical of their attitude to customers overall. The light they came across as in the recent TV series is confirmed.

I'd be very interested to know what sort of outcome results from the "promise of an unspecified refund in two months' time,"

LCC Alright !
 

I agree quite simply with the majority of the comments here, you get what you pay for !!!

If you want to pay $40.00 for a ticket and in return receive a $5.00 coffee voucher when delayed, or receive no compensation, no overnight accomodation if the service is cancelled at night with no more flights going to your destination, then fly with an LCC.

If you want to fly with a carrier who has a skeleton ground crew and a skeleton flight crew which means as soon as one staff member goes U/S, or a plane lands 15 minutes late the rest of the networks schedule will now incur gradual delays sector by sector and be unrecoverable and turn to custard, then fly an LCC.

If you want to fly with an airline who has a small amount of aircraft, nil spare planes and basically nil aircraft spares in stock so as to minimise costs, and then has a plane go U/S causing a backlog and mass delays across the entire network,then fly with an LCC. In fact, if wish to fly with an airline that has so few spares that the aircraft are belted with MEL after MEL day after day after day after day until they are grounded and completely U/S, then quickly jump aboard that LCC.

If you wish to fly with an airline that runs its Crew Rosters so thin that when there are delays at the beginning of the month they thrash the crews in the first two weeks til they run out of duty times causing crewing shortages at the end of the month or the beginning of the following month resulting in more delays and cancelled flights, then fly with an LCC.

Best of all, if you wish to fly with an airline that won't station Engineers in non-mainline ports due to cost minimalization and then have their aircraft go U/S in that port causing mass delays and schedule chaos ( although the company looks good on paper having a small workforce, even though one such delay will cost the airline the same amount of an Engineers yearly wage), then fly an LCC !

Aagh yes, the joys of a LCC. Perhaps LSS - Lousy Sh.t Service is more appropriate ?

It's a probability game.

O'Leary is the King. He baits for the average bargain hunter and generally reels in more than BA or the other mainline carriers take off each punter.

Stupidity like most other fish can always be caught with minimal bait.

It always amazes me to see the stack of Bogans at Stansted spending hundreds of quid at a time in the duty free thinking they have picked O'Leary's pocket. Little do they know.

I think the same applies in OZ.

Correct me if I'm wrong (which would never happen on PPRuNe :}) but I don't think Tiger has shareholders, at least the sort who talk about it. They're not a publicly listed company and information about their operation is very thin on the ground. The sensible suggestions here about running with a reduced load or flying in crew are never put to an AGM. Caveat Emptor; let the buyer beware.
Easy to say and maybe correct, but as someone who toughened up while ill and nearly caused a runway incursion I get a bit wary about telling people to work while sick. This is supposed to be a civilized country and part of being civilized involves having a contingency plan for when staff are unwell. Anything else is Amateur Night.

I have actually worked the galley preparing trays on an EW F27 service to Melbourne. We were under the number of pax required for 1 FA, so as I was going to MEL for meetings, I volunteered. 36 was the max- we were at 32. One girl came down with food poisoning. On time - happy campers. I enjoyed a non boring flight and actually earned my dollars too

Please don't tell me a no or little service airline couldn't operate on a legal number of F/A's to passengers if one goes U/S?

At 36 bodies per F/A over water - do the math - the thing operated empty.

That is as clever as pulling nose hair out with tweezers for fun.

Really.

I refuse to fly LCCs myself. Born a Legacy Airline brat and will be that until I die, however Jetstar and Virgin have shown pretty fair glimmers of creeping back to a decent level of late with cancellations due to unserviceability and the like. Passengers transferred on FIM's - accommodated. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and it is no longer the 4:17 from Belgrave.

Keep it up dudes.

You may just drag yourself back from the bus terminus to the Airport.

Best all

EWL

A minimum of 4 Cabin Crew for a 320 (I am guessing it was the A/C). I work for a full service airline and we have 5 for 320.

LCC operate with MINIMUM crew. Loose one, you only have 3.

Whether you pay top dollar or the lowest price, the company you purchased your ticket wth has a responsibility to get you there and safely :ok: Otherwise, they look after you!

These companies want to compete and slash the price, THIER problem, NOT the paying public.