Tiger Airways: endangered but not extinct
In this guest post, Tim Riches argues why Singapore’s Tiger Airways can find its way back from the brink in Australia
Whenever you read anything in the paper about Tiger Airways, there’s a presumption they’ll really struggle to get back on track in Australia.
But I’m not sure we should write the brand off just yet.
What I’m not talking about is the difficulty in terms of making money, which considering that Tiger posted a multi-million dollar loss in the last financial year, and I suspect hasn’t yet made money in the Australian market, is no small matter.
Tim – positive or negative first experience with the Brand is going to be the greatest driver of their success. I have made it my mission to tell as many people as possible how terrible they are – having been stranded away on a ‘cheap’ holiday, with Tiger’s own travel insurance not worth a thing. The more people that fly them – the greater the chance they will fail… as current management doesn’t actually value their customers… but rather sees them as ‘suckers lining up to be fleeced’
Agree it would be hard for Tiger to fall any further.
Well, as I always tell my clients, ‘I’m not a one-man focus group’ (for those that still believe in focus groups, that is) but when recently planning a trip to Melbourne, I completely wiped Tiger out of contention. For me, it was about the lowest price I could get from Virgin or Jetstar. Why? It’s not the service – I’ve flown Tiger before and had no issues. It’s the safety factor. Are they likely to crash? No. Am I willing to pay an extra couple of hundred bucks (return) for the peace of mind I’ll get going with either of their competitors? Yes. And unfortunately, they seem to know this and have jacked their prices accordingly.
So for me, it’s now about Jetstar and Virgin – and preferably the latter, as they’re a far more positive lot who seem to actually enjoy their jobs.
Tim, you seem to be describing a scenario similar to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
All you say has some semblance of credibility in isolation and applied meaningfully from the get-go.
However, when each aspect of what you outline has been over promised, under delivered and contorted by Tiger, then you’re left with a failed brand and an impossible brand redemption. It’s poisoned.
SQ should start again, with a new brand and this time do it more intelligently.