The start of domestic operations by Tiger Airways from its Melbourne base on 23 November 2007 helped give new impetus to Australia’s domestic market growth.
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| Source: BITRE |
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| Tiger Airways began services from Melbourne to the Sunshine Coast (home of Australia Zoo) last November. |
Although February’s growth was aided by an extra day, in the first quarter of 2008 passenger demand was up around 10%. However, this surge in demand has come at the expense of load factors. Since Tiger entered the market monthly load factors in the domestic market have fallen slightly (by less than one percentage point) but in April load factors were down 2.6 percentage points to 77.7%.
Tiger maintains 3% of domestic capacity: drops Newcastle
Latest schedule data shows that Tiger Airways, which now operates 12 domestic routes from its Melbourne base, has maintained its 3% share of domestic capacity. However, it has recently announced plans to pull off the Newcastle route from 11 August after rival Jetstar decided to increase frequencies from two to three daily flights. Tiger only began operating on the route in mid-January. The removed capacity will be re-allocated to the existing Adelaide and Canberra routes, enabling Adelaide to be served thrice daily.
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| Source: OAG Max Online |
Qantas still operates the most domestic airport-pairs with 92, followed by Virgin Blue (51) and Jetstar (45). Regional Express (33) and Skywest (24) both operate more routes than Tiger but with significantly smaller aircraft.
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| Victorian Minister for Industry and Trade Theo Theophanous (centre) cuts the ribbon to open T4, Tiger Airways’ terminal at Melbourne Airport last October. |
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