Tiger Airways

Tiger Airways is a low-cost airline, with its main hub at the Singapore Changi Airport. It is fully owned by Tiger Aviation, a Singapore based company. At present, it is the largest low-cost airline in Singapore, in terms of the passenger transport criteria. Its flights fly within a radius of 5 hours from its base in Singapore. Mounting oil prices and stiff competition from other airlines adversely affected the initial business of the airline, but it made a remarkable progress later on. The airline is also planning to buy regional carriers with a motive to expand its services to pan-Asia. The air service started flights to India in 2007 and also aims to expand to Malaysia. At present, it caters to eight countries in the world, covering 19 foreign destinations.

History
Tiger Airways was incorporated on 12th December 2003 and around eight months later i.e. in August 20, it the sale of its tickets. It overcame initial hiccups to register a meteoric rise in business by 2006. When all the other flights to Macau were terminated by the end of 2004, Tiger Airways took over the root and started flights to Macau from March 2005 onwards. It also resumed services to Krabi in 2005, when Silk Air, another air service of Singapore, terminated flights to the town, as an outcome of 2004 Indian ocean earthquake. By September 2005, the airline has ferried 500,000 passengers aboard its planes.

In February 2006, Tiger Airways became the first Singaporean low-cost carrier to get operating permits from Chinese aviation authorities, to fly to the southern cities of Haikou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. In fact, it pumped up more flights to Haikou and Guangzhou in the first three months only; following a rise in travel to these destinations. In March 2007, it started services from Singapore to Perth and the following year, it entered a tie-up with South East Asian Airlines. The airline is now looking forward to a bigger fleet and addition of more air routes to its existing account.

Destinations Covered
Among the foreign destinations covered by the Tiger Airways are cities like Bangalore, Chennai and Kochi in India and Guangzhou, Macau, Shenzhen, Xiamen and Haikou in China. In Indonesia, it serves destinations like Jakarta and Padang, while it covers Kuala Lumpur, Kota, Kinabalu, Kuching, and Penang in Malaysia. In Thailand, it goes to Bangkok, Phuket Chuang Mai and some other places. Its network extends to Da Nang, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnama and Perth in Australia as well. At the domestic level, it covers all the major local destinations in Singapore.

Tiger Airways Australia
Tiger Airways started a full fledged service in Australia on 23rd November 2007, in direct competition with the indigenous airlines of Australia, like Virgin Blue and Jetstar. A subsidiary of Tiger Aviation only, it has Melbourne Airport as its main hub. In 2008, Adelaide was announced as its second operational base. The air service covers all destinations in Australia. Tiger Airways also announced a Korea-based low-cost airline in 2007, intended to serve destinations like China, Japan, Mongolia and Russia Far East.

Corporate Management & Fleet
Tiger Airways is wholly owned by Tiger Aviation, a holding company that was established in 2007, for the purpose of managing both Tiger Airways and its start-up Australian subsidiary - Tiger Airways Australia. The founding shareholders of this airline were Singapore Airlines (49%), Bill Franke's Indigo Partners (24%), Tony Ryan's Irelandia Investments (16%) and Temasek Holdings (11%). At present, it has a fleet of 10 aircrafts, comprising of Airbus A320-232 and Airbus A319-132.