Tiger Airways Australia expects to resume services “in the near future”, possibly by 5th August, having been given conditions to meet by Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority. The Singapore-based low cost carrier’s Australian flights were grounded by the CASA four weeks ago due to safety concerns.
In a statement the airline said: “CASA has today issued Tiger Airways Australia with a set of formal conditions that the airline must comply with, some of which must be satisfied prior to the reintroduction of their domestic flights. As a result of the progress made since 1 July 2011, Tiger Airways Australia is confident that it can comply with these conditions and expects to resume services in the near future.
“As a consequence, Tiger Airways Australia will automatically refund all passengers booked to fly between 1 August 2011 and 4 August 2011 (both dates inclusive). A further announcement, concerning flights scheduled to operate from 5 August 2011 and the re-commencement of sales, will be made at the appropriate time.”
CASA said: “While CASA might be able to grant the necessary approvals by August 1, Tiger clearly anticipates a return to service no sooner than August 5. There are suggestions that when Tiger resumes services it will drop Avalon as its second Melbourne airport in favour of basing all or most of its fleet of 10 Airbus A320s at Tullamarine.
“This may in turn see a much more concentrated network focus on the Melbourne-Sydney route, as well as on flights to Brisbane, which is expected to be one of the early cities which the as yet unnamed Boeing 777-200 equipped Singapore Airlines owned medium to long haul low fare carrier will serve from sometime next year.”
