Tiger faces challenging year as it looks to recover following losses in Australia and Singapore

Tiger Airways has reported a loss of SGD104 million (USD82 million) for its fiscal year ending 31-Mar-2012, a rare negative result for a leading Asian LCC, which generally continues to profit from the huge growth opportunities in the budget end of Asia's dynamic market. But Tiger is confident the launch of new joint ventures in Indonesia and the Philippines will allow the group to absorb the excess capacity which plagued Tiger in FY2011/12, significantly increasing its ex-fuel unit costs as its fleet became underutilised.

With the return of higher aircraft utilisation and lower unit costs, coupled with more rationale capacity, Tiger's typically profitable Singapore operation could return to the black later this year. But turning around the Australia operation, which was already unprofitable prior to the six-week grounding by Australian regulators last July and August, could be more challenging. Equally daunting is the task of turning its newly launched joint venture in Indonesia and its planned joint venture in the Philippines, which is now expected to launch in the quarter ending 30-Sep-2012 (2QFY2012/13), into profitable investments.