Tiger announces plans to expand from Melbourne Airport
Tiger Airways Australia announced (29-Oct-2009) plans to expand frequencies from its Melbourne Tullamarine Airport base in early 2010, in a move that will create 250,000 extra seats from the airport p/a. Increased service frequencies include:
- Melbourne-Gold Coast: to four times daily 07-Jan-2009;
- Melbourne-Adelaide: to 16 times weekly on 05-Feb-2009;
- Melbourne-Hobart: to twice daily on 05-Feb-2009;
- Melbourne-Sunshine Coast: to six times weekly, launch date not disclosed - see Route Changes Table for more information. [more][more - Melbourne Airport named CAPA Low Cost Airport of 2009]
The increased frequencies come as the carrier plans to base an eighth aircraft to its fleet in early 2010, to be based at Adelaide Airport (The Australian/The Advertiser, 30-Oct-2009). Mr Davis stated the carrier's new Adelaide base was performing well.
Tiger Airways: "It's two years now since we started the airline and we always said from the very beginning that we were here for the long haul and it was going to be about sustainable growth and appropriate growth, but growth nonetheless. And we've stuck to our word. Slowly but surely we keep adding routes and we keep adding more aircraft to the bases and I think that's going to be the theme going forward into 2010. You're going to see more planes more routes and more low fares…We always try and start the bases in ways that are economically appropriate and then you try and ramp them up as soon as the numbers support it. And what we've seen in Adelaide is that consumers there have responded very well to the fact that we've introduced very low fares," Tony Davis, CEO. Source: The Australian, 30-Oct-2009.