Tigerair Australia Delays/Cancellations

[Melburnian1]

Some passengers are simply unlucky.

TT559, the 1210 hours Thursday 29 December OOL - MEL (A320 VH-VNJ) was already delayed, taking off at 1334, but timekeeping was further hindered with the heavy rain and flash flooding in parts of Melbourne and MEL resultant apparent closure for a while.

In an hour and 19 minutes between 1459 and 1618 hours, MEL (airport) had 42.6 millimetres of rain: tropical conditions like Jakarta or Manila!

TT559 was held above Mirrool,, NSW and subsequently Tocumwal, NSW such that arrival is estimated at 1737, 127 minutes behind schedule.

TT464, the 1500 hours mid afternoon ADL to MEL took off at 1640. Arrival should be at 1837 this evening, 107 minutes behind schedule. The plane is A320 VH-VNQ.

VH-VNJ on TT505, the 1600 hours MEL - HBA was airborne at 1834. It should arrive at 1930, 135 minutes past the what the timetable states.

 

[Melburnian1]

On Friday 30 December, TT206, the first of the morning's MEL to SYD flights at 0645 hours ex MEL has been cancelled. So has TT228, the 1110 hours MEL - SYD.

Later in the day, TT252, the mid afternoon 1530 hours MEL to SYD is also cancelled. In the evening, TT272, the 1940 hours MEL - SYD has also got the boot.

It looks like an A320 aircraft must have broken down.

What happens to 600 plus passengers (or more if the flights are close to full?) Are some transferred on to VA? It is not a time of year when businessmen are travelling, but school holidays (adding Christmas and New Year in to the mix) should mean flights are full or not far off, so VA may not have 600 plus spare seats in one direction from MEL up to SYD.

On Friday 30 December, TT595, the 2335 hours Thursday 29 arrival in MEL ex CNS should arrive at about 0215 hours - shocking time to be off a plane.

In the morning (30 December), TT424, the timetabled 0620 hours arrival in MEL ex PER should instead be on blocks at about 0750 - 90 minutes tardy.

TT221, the southbound 0855 hours SYD - MEL has been cancelled as has TT243, the 1315 hours flight ex SYD for the southern capital. TT263 and TT287, the 1900 and late night 2310 hours respectively arrivals in MEL ex SYD have also been deleted.

Not a great day shaping up for the last Friday of 2016 as far as Tigerair is concerned. Its passengers might rue the day (not that JQ is any better: arguably now it's a lot worse most days.)

 

[docjames]

I'm reliably informed that due to a prior hiring freeze in order to contain costs, followed by higher than expected resignations, Tiger is currently relatively short on flight crews. Adding to the complexity is the medium-term plan to switch to the 737 across the fleet, and the need to get sufficient hours / cycles into the transitioning crews there may need to be a significant aircraft shuffle and have the 737s that are currently operating some of the longer routes being re-deployed onto the short cycle eastern seaboard routes to get cycles into transitioning crews. This means the A320 redeploying onto current 737 routes, which in turn means re-routing as the A320 cant economically do eg. MEL-DPS so a new schedule of eg MEL-PER-DPS may be in th works.

As an example of one of the issues, crews are getting very close to hitting their 28 day maximum flight hour limits (eg. by 20-30mins), whereby if outbound legs are delayed (eg. transcon), the crew will have to go for sufficient rest period (8-12hrs) to clock over into the 29th day and "reclaim" duty hours from the first day, meaning significant delay(s) in return flight. I wonder if some of the cancellations and/or delays relate to this.

So you could argue it's "efficient" scheduling to maximise crew use, or a sign of difficulties in maintaining on time performance with crews flying routinely to the max.

 

[samh004]

I'm reliably informed that due to a prior hiring freeze in order to contain costs, followed by higher than expected resignations, Tiger is currently relatively short on flight crews. Adding to the complexity is the medium-term plan to switch to the 737 across the fleet, and the need to get sufficient hours / cycles into the transitioning crews there may need to be a significant aircraft shuffle and have the 737s that are currently operating some of the longer routes being re-deployed onto the short cycle eastern seaboard routes to get cycles into transitioning crews. This means the A320 redeploying onto current 737 routes, which in turn means re-routing as the A320 cant economically do eg. MEL-DPS so a new schedule of eg MEL-PER-DPS may be in th works.

As an example of one of the issues, crews are getting very close to hitting their 28 day maximum flight hour limits (eg. by 20-30mins), whereby if outbound legs are delayed (eg. transcon), the crew will have to go for sufficient rest period (8-12hrs) to clock over into the 29th day and "reclaim" duty hours from the first day, meaning significant delay(s) in return flight. I wonder if some of the cancellations and/or delays relate to this.

So you could argue it's "efficient" scheduling to maximise crew use, or a sign of difficulties in maintaining on time performance with crews flying routinely to the max.

I have copied your post into its own thread for further discussion: http://www.australianfrequentflyer....erair-australia-short-flight-crews-80166.html

 

[Melburnian1]

In further on Friday 30 December, TT471, the 1720 hours afternoon flight from MEL across to ADL, the 1815 hours MEL - OOL (TT572) and TT272, the 1940 hours from MEL up to SYD have all been cancelled.

 

[Melburnian1]

Delays continue on Friday 30 December with TT530 (1550 hours from MEL up to BNE, A320 VH-VNF) taking off at 1850. It should arrive at about 1949, 164 minutes late.

 

[Melburnian1]

The Monday 2 January 2017 late night TT289 (2200 hours SYD - MEL, A320 VH-VNF) appears to have just commenced pushback at 2246 so it is cutting it pretty fine to take off before the 2300 hours curfew.

 

[Melburnian1]

The 0115 hours redeye from DRW to BNE on Tuesday 3 January, TT655 (A320 VH-VNH) was airborne at 0332 so bleary eyed passengers will be alighting at about 0742, 127 minutes late.

TT520 (1035 MEL - BNE) has been delayed by 90 minutes in its departure.

 

[Melburnian1]

Thursday 5 january 2017 sees TT607, the 1000 hours from OOL down to SYD that took off at 1121 set to arrive at 1235, 65 minutes late with aircraft A320 VH-VNB.

 

[Melburnian1]

TT16, the Thursday 5 January 2017 1355 hours DPS - ADL has turned into a very uncomfortable journey for passengers as the flight did not take off from Bali until 0157 this morning (Friday 6.) ADL arrival is predicted as 0912 instead of 2125, almost 12 hours late. The conveyance is B738 VH-VOY.

 

[Melburnian1]

Passengers on the Friday 6 January 2017 HBA - MEL, TT502 (due out at 0830 hours) may have had a day to remember for all the wrong reasons as the flight did not arrive in MEL until about 1630 compared with the stipulation of the timetable at 0950.

TT530 (1550 hours MEL up to BNE) should instead depart at about 1715.

TT517, the 1515 hours ex OOL into MEL was cancelled.

 

[clarmich]

This can't be good...
https://tigerair.com.au/fly/travel-alerts

Booked to fly to Bali with the family this coming Monday, 16 January ADL-DPS...

 

[Melburnian1]

...Booked to fly to Bali with the family this coming Monday, 16 January ADL-DPS...

clarmich, this may mean that the Indonesian Government has not approved one aircraft type or individual aircraft Tigerair has sought to venture to and from Bali.

Agreed, a disaster for passengers. One wonders how you and others will be transported. Will they have to use SQ to SIN, whose flights may already be heavily booked at this time of year?

 

[Guvner]

Indonesian authorities suspend Tigerair Australia Bali flights | Australian Aviation

 

[Pushka]

This is not good. Awful for people.

 

[Melburnian1]

Adding to the discomfort Pushka is how tonight's television news was reporting that Tigerair had not yet indicated if tomorrow's flights (Thursday 12 January) would operate.

There aren't many travellers I know who enjoy such uncertainty. An exception may be young people (18 -25) on their first unsupervised international trip or who have no time constraints because they're about to start uni in a month, or are on uni holidays. For them, it may be an 'adventure' but for many more senior in years, especially if on a prebooked holiday or travelling with children and infants it must be a nightmare.

Tigerair must hope that 'administrative' matters re approval of aircraft to operate can be agreed to and that at very short notice the flights operate.

As we are approaching mid January, southbound seats may start to be in short supply on all airlines operating DPS - Oz and for that matter on other routes ex southeast Asia. Trying to find 180 or 360 seats a day may be difficult for Tigerair, depending on what competitor or *A airlines it decides to approach if the farce continues.

 

[Pushka]

And we can only hope the Volcano behaves itself.

 

[Melburnian1]

This ABC report suggests that Tigerair should not have been issuing one way tickets (ex Indonesia) and that its flights are 'charters':

Tigerair Bali flight cancellations: Indonesia accuses airline of breaching licence conditions - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The Australian use of the word 'charter' implies that a group has hired a bus, train, ferry or plane. In Indonesia it must be different. Tigerair sells individual tickets.

The tone of the report suggests that these flights may not resume at all, or not quickly.

On its own, this farce will ensure, one would have thought, that TT again becomes a loss maker.

No wonder Mr Borghetti described 2017 as likely to be 'challenging!' Will he lose his job as CEO of VA (and effective head honcho supervising TT, even though from memory Rob Sharp is the latter's CEO.)

 

[docjames]

[FONT=&amp]following a decision by the Indonesian government to impose new administrative requirements for the operation of its flights between Bali and Australia,”

Any ideas what on earth the requirements are (and how they affect Tigerair and not JQ/VA/QF)?

I gather something to do with a "temporary approval" subsequently expiring (or being cancelled) but any ideas why?

Pretty hopeless situation for everyone.[/FONT]

 

[moa999]

Pulling from a few sources it appears that TT Int is not using its own AOC for these flights, but rather running a charter/wet lease operation with VA Int (which operates under a grandfathered shareholding structure - although doesn't report financials separately)

All comes back to the fact that VA is now 90+℅ foreign owned - no problem running a 100℅ domestic operation, becomes much more difficult operating Internationally

A bit more detail here:
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-...ndonesian-government-says/8177242?pfmredir=sm