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Unlike a Tiger
Jun. 19th, 2011 02:10 pm I will never fly on Tiger again, regardless on how cheap the fair is. I have had two flights with them and despite the flights being uneventful and the staff being fabulous and nice, it lacks something. Ok it lacks a lot of things and some things alone I will put up with, but not all of them.
I flew from both Tullamarine and Avalon in Melbourne to the lovely Adelaide airport and to Perth respectively. Tulla’s terminal is T4, which is a back shed, which is about the same description that one can give to all of Avalon airport. Though the planes stop closer to the door at Avalon, for the most part, the outdoors part of he walk at Tulla is undercover anyways. Tulla’s disadvantage is more being in the cold longer, but the bane of Melbourne is rain and with both you are exposed to the rain less than with Jetstar.
Again, to compare with Jetstar, there is less pretence with tiger. You don’t walk for 2kms through a pretty terminal to walk out a back door and into the rain like one does at Tulla with Jetstar, so the lack of bridge to the plane at either the Perth end or Melbourne end is not a disadvantage.
Tiger puts the ‘cattle’ back in to ‘cattle class’. At Tullamarine, we were herd to a point where our carry-on luggage was weighed, then herded to the next point where it was scanned by a single scanner, and despite there being a huge queue and two available scanners, they still herded us all through the single one.
Then there was the cattle being herded. If you are wearing a tight top and you have a muffin top, you create a look similar to that of rolled roast. The material of your top bunches up and digs in like the string on a roast. On a roast it looks good, on a person, not so much.
At Tullamarine we noticed the crew of the TV show ‘Airways’ filming. As I tried to avoid getting into any shot, my friend and I discussed the fact that the flight to Sydney was cancelled. It was the middle flight of three Tiger flights leaving from Tullamarine that Saturday morning. Maybe we were overly cynical in surmising that the reason for the cancellation was less logistical and more for TV. Was the cancellation there to create drama for the cameras? If it was, was it worth it? There seems to be a last minute flight cancellation every other week on airways and one must wonder if the amount that the producers of the TV show are paying will make up for the bad publicity that Tiger is getting from the show. With Tiger being about $6.8 million in debt, I don’t think they are getting enough from the producers.
Tiger are trying to make this money back in dribs and drabs, and I have no objection to the advertising for Tasmania on the over head lockers. They can make their tickets ’shopper dockets’ for all I care as long as they get me safely from A to B, but that is the thing I have little faith in with Tiger.
Again I must reiterated that I have had no eventful flights. They have actually been some of the best flights I have been on. Even though both flights departed late, the pilots have endeavoured to make up the time and kept passengers informed.
The air hosts and hostesses are not the prettiest in the world, actually the guy on the Adelaide flight was possibly the ugliest air host in the world, but they were competent and even though they flew with the bare minimum legal staff (probably slightly under actually, I think there were 4 hosties on each flight, on an A320 I think there is meant to be 5), but again they were competent and I have no issues
The staff at Avalon check-in weren’t in uniform, and though it looked unprofessional, I take no issue. I was checked in quickly and competently. It is the hunk of metal that I was thrown into the sky in that I was concerned about.
The flight to Adelaide I saw a couple cosmetic issues. A seat cover with a tear in it and an over head electrics cover that wasn’t in properly, which the staff fixed mid flight. The flight to Perth, the over head cover had finger marks on it, probably from someone getting their fingers dirty from the ink from a newspaper, but seeing there was a 10 minute turn around in the plane, I wouldn’t expect it to be clean and perfect.
I would expect that row 24 D-F had adjustable seats, which it randomly didn’t, which made me wonder if the seats were put back in the wrong spot. Were the seats in row 11 adjustable? A tray in row 22 was broken and couldn’t be put away. The plastic cover surrounding a window in row 21 was taped down. I am expecting that my next Tiger flight will be on a plane that is so cannibalised that it looks more like and Igor than a plane.
Tiger have only recently had issues with the ATSB/CASA over their maintenance, or lack there of. They have apparently rectified the issues seen by the authorities, but I am pedantic. Though none of what I have seen were safety concerns, they show the little things that have been missed and they make the passenger, in this case me, wonder what other little things have been missed. I am not a nervous flyer, but someone who is isn’t the person you want in the seat next to you on a Tiger flight. One couldn’t help but to think that if they scheduled more time between flights, they would be able to fix these minor issues. Communication from previous turn-overs and flights could also prevent issues, but why remove the cattle feel from tiger cattle class.
I flew from both Tullamarine and Avalon in Melbourne to the lovely Adelaide airport and to Perth respectively. Tulla’s terminal is T4, which is a back shed, which is about the same description that one can give to all of Avalon airport. Though the planes stop closer to the door at Avalon, for the most part, the outdoors part of he walk at Tulla is undercover anyways. Tulla’s disadvantage is more being in the cold longer, but the bane of Melbourne is rain and with both you are exposed to the rain less than with Jetstar.
Again, to compare with Jetstar, there is less pretence with tiger. You don’t walk for 2kms through a pretty terminal to walk out a back door and into the rain like one does at Tulla with Jetstar, so the lack of bridge to the plane at either the Perth end or Melbourne end is not a disadvantage.
Tiger puts the ‘cattle’ back in to ‘cattle class’. At Tullamarine, we were herd to a point where our carry-on luggage was weighed, then herded to the next point where it was scanned by a single scanner, and despite there being a huge queue and two available scanners, they still herded us all through the single one.
Then there was the cattle being herded. If you are wearing a tight top and you have a muffin top, you create a look similar to that of rolled roast. The material of your top bunches up and digs in like the string on a roast. On a roast it looks good, on a person, not so much.
At Tullamarine we noticed the crew of the TV show ‘Airways’ filming. As I tried to avoid getting into any shot, my friend and I discussed the fact that the flight to Sydney was cancelled. It was the middle flight of three Tiger flights leaving from Tullamarine that Saturday morning. Maybe we were overly cynical in surmising that the reason for the cancellation was less logistical and more for TV. Was the cancellation there to create drama for the cameras? If it was, was it worth it? There seems to be a last minute flight cancellation every other week on airways and one must wonder if the amount that the producers of the TV show are paying will make up for the bad publicity that Tiger is getting from the show. With Tiger being about $6.8 million in debt, I don’t think they are getting enough from the producers.
Tiger are trying to make this money back in dribs and drabs, and I have no objection to the advertising for Tasmania on the over head lockers. They can make their tickets ’shopper dockets’ for all I care as long as they get me safely from A to B, but that is the thing I have little faith in with Tiger.
Again I must reiterated that I have had no eventful flights. They have actually been some of the best flights I have been on. Even though both flights departed late, the pilots have endeavoured to make up the time and kept passengers informed.
The air hosts and hostesses are not the prettiest in the world, actually the guy on the Adelaide flight was possibly the ugliest air host in the world, but they were competent and even though they flew with the bare minimum legal staff (probably slightly under actually, I think there were 4 hosties on each flight, on an A320 I think there is meant to be 5), but again they were competent and I have no issues
The staff at Avalon check-in weren’t in uniform, and though it looked unprofessional, I take no issue. I was checked in quickly and competently. It is the hunk of metal that I was thrown into the sky in that I was concerned about.
The flight to Adelaide I saw a couple cosmetic issues. A seat cover with a tear in it and an over head electrics cover that wasn’t in properly, which the staff fixed mid flight. The flight to Perth, the over head cover had finger marks on it, probably from someone getting their fingers dirty from the ink from a newspaper, but seeing there was a 10 minute turn around in the plane, I wouldn’t expect it to be clean and perfect.
I would expect that row 24 D-F had adjustable seats, which it randomly didn’t, which made me wonder if the seats were put back in the wrong spot. Were the seats in row 11 adjustable? A tray in row 22 was broken and couldn’t be put away. The plastic cover surrounding a window in row 21 was taped down. I am expecting that my next Tiger flight will be on a plane that is so cannibalised that it looks more like and Igor than a plane.
Tiger have only recently had issues with the ATSB/CASA over their maintenance, or lack there of. They have apparently rectified the issues seen by the authorities, but I am pedantic. Though none of what I have seen were safety concerns, they show the little things that have been missed and they make the passenger, in this case me, wonder what other little things have been missed. I am not a nervous flyer, but someone who is isn’t the person you want in the seat next to you on a Tiger flight. One couldn’t help but to think that if they scheduled more time between flights, they would be able to fix these minor issues. Communication from previous turn-overs and flights could also prevent issues, but why remove the cattle feel from tiger cattle class.