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It was a somber experience to listen to Tiger Airways Holdings acting chief executive Chin Yau Seng on Thursday night reiterate the group's commitment to safety and the Australian market, its desire to resume services as quickly as possible, and the "demonstration of commitment" Tiger made by appointing a former Qantas chief pilot as a safety advisor, when hours earlier Australia's safety regulator decided there were "deficiencies" so great in Tiger's re-submitted paperwork that it would take a few weeks to sort out, during which time Tiger would remain grounded.

During Tiger's first quarter earnings call Chin made no mention of the grounding extension the Civil Aviation Safety Authority plans to seek, saying instead Tiger had "made good progress with CASA" and "hopefully tomorrow we'll make another announcement".

When asked about the grounding extension, Chin said, "We can't comment on that." He added that "discussions are on going".

Whether Chin was ignorant or trying to spin the situation by avoiding it all together is debatable, but far more important is Tiger's paperwork failure, the sequence of which needs to be put into perspective.

CASA said it gave Tiger on 28 July "a notice listing a set of conditions it is proposing to impose on its air operator's certificate which may form the basis for the airline resuming operations. The notice also set out what Tiger Airways needs to do before CASA would even consider imposing the conditions."

Four days later on 1 August, CASA said Tiger had responded and CASA would consider the response. Advance three days to today and the response has so many "deficiencies" that it will take weeks to sort out, despite the response only being compiled in four days. It leaves the mind to wonder how Tiger in four days created a mess so great it will take weeks to sort out.

Clearly Chris Manning, the former Qantas chief pilot appointed as Tiger safety advisor, is not working out--but it remains to be seen if it is his doing or Tiger management not fully embracing his recommendations. Chin said Thursday evening that Manning "brings onboard a difference perspective". Chin said Tiger was willing to improve its safety. "Nobody's perfect," he said.

But not everybody is grounded, and then faced with an extended grounding after botching an opportunity to return to service.

A$18m loss for first quarter
On top of that, Tiger Australia for the first quarter had a "disappointing" S$23.2m (A$18m) operating loss, much of which Tiger attributed to higher fuel costs and decreased revenue from volcanic activity. Despite the Singapore arm posting an operating profit of S$7.5m, down from S$13.5m for the corresponding quarter last year, the group posted a S$20.6m loss, down from a S$1.9m profit for the first quarter last year.

Chin expected the current grounding, which occurred over the popular July school holidays, would see Tiger Australia post a financial loss for the year to 31 March 2012.

Annual earnings for the group would be "significantly affected" because of Tiger Australia's loss and grounding, Chin said. Bookings in Singapore, however, were strong, Chin said.

Here some say Tiger should call it quits in the Australian market. The carrier disclosed that as of today it had refunded S$17.7m in ticket sales and S$1.7m of ancillary revenue since the grounding. Those figures, however, are not in addition to the S$2m the carrier previously reported it was losing each week of the grounding.

Tiger confirmed it is in discussions with the South Australian government over the A$2.25m the government granted, with conditions, to Tiger to set up a base at Adelaide that is now expected to close. "These discussions are ongoing and a conclusion has yet to be reached," Tiger said in a statement.

No plans to leave Australia
"It is a major setback but I think we will get over it," Chin said. He added that there was "money to be made" in the domestic market, and Tiger Australia has in the past come close to break-even. Tiger's board and investors were "nowhere close to that tipping point" of pulling the plug down under, Chin said.

Re-branding not ruled out
If and when Tiger resumes services it will likely do so under its existing brand, but the carrier has not ruled out a re-branding exercise in the future. "When we resume services we intend to keep our brand," Chin said. He added that the group was working on a "number of initiatives".

No direction on service resumption plans
For nearly a week now Tiger's booking engine has showed that it only flies from Melbourne to five destinations. Asked if this was an indicator of reduced services, as expected, once the ban was lifted, Chin remarked it would be "premature to comment on what resumed services will look like".

"It doesn't mean it's restricted to that," Chin said, explaining he was "not yet in a position to say what the resumption plan is".

Aircraft basing flexible
A cut in services could yield surplus aircraft. While there were reports last month leasing agreements would make it prohibitively expensive to re-locate aircraft from Australia to the group's Asian bases, Chin said there were no such financial restrictions.

Chin, a former executive with Singapore Airlines, who has an approximately one-third stake in Tiger, disclosed the Tiger board approached him to lead the company while then-chief executive Tony Davis went to Australia to lead the operation here. Chin received clearance from Singapore Airlines to take up the opportunity.

The future management structure of Tiger is unclear, although Chin lightheartedly remarked "Tony [Davis] is not banished to Australia".

The prospect of the government banning foreign cabin crew on domestic flights, as reported in some outlets, would be a bold step--but if only it were true.

In reality the private bill Independent Senator for South Australia Nick Xenophon intends to introduce has a narrow remit. Xenophon, who chaired the Senate inquiry into pilot training and aviation safety, wants foreign-based cabin crew employed to work on Australian aircraft to have the same flight and duty time limitations as their Australian counterparts. It is an appropriate measure.

"This is a basic issue of fairness and safety," Xenophon said in a statement. "We shouldn't have an underclass of cabin crews flying around Australia on Australian carriers." Xenophon said foreign crew have no limitations in their contract on how many hours they could be expected to fly.

Jetstar chief executive Bruce Buchanan was asked at a March Senate hearing if foreign crew had different duty limitations than their local counterparts.

"There is a variety of different arrangements in place on the Australian domestic arrangements. Some of the international crew will align with some of the Australian international crew, but the domestic crew have different agreements and different time limitations and how they work in Australia," Buchanan replied.

Xenophon's bill follows a recently-aired local documentary on ABC Lateline that highlighted how Jetstar employs Thai cabin crew from a company Qantas owns 37% of yet gives lower conditions to and, in some (exceptional) instances, has cabin crew work 20-hour shifts. The long shifts raise questions over how safety proficient the crew could be in an emergency.

"In the event of an emergency, I believe passengers have a right to expect that their cabin crews are going to be alert enough to get the door open and the passengers out," Xenophon said.

The proposed bill would also apply to international airlines in which an Australian carrier has a stake of at least 20%, directly affecting Jetstar Asia--which flies Airbus A330s from Singapore to Melbourne--and any possible full-service east Asia-based subsidiary Qantas will announce on 24 August.

While Xenophon said he would "take up" the issue of the lower salaries paid to foreign crews, he stopped short of calling for legislation on the topic. Buchanan told the senate inquiry an "indicative" salary (likely including per diem and flight hours) for Jetstar's Singapore-based crew would range from $36,000-$46,000 while the "indicative" salary for Australian-based cabin crew was $50,000-$69,000.

Buchanan said at the hearing that Thai-based cabin crew have similar salaries as their Singapore colleagues while Vietnam-based salaries "are substantially less" but "commensurate with local market levels".

"At the end of the day, you have to be competitive in each of the local markets to recruit cabin crew and pilots," Buchanan said.

Xenophon's statement said the bill "follows revelations that Jetstar's Bangkok-based foreign crews regularly work on flights that travel from one Australian location to another, and that most passengers would believe are domestic flights."

That statement is in reference to foreign-based crew working "tag" domestic services on their aircraft between international sectors, such as A330 flight JQ35 that routes Sydney-Melbourne-Bali. Foreign crews work the Sydney-Melbourne sector.

However, Xenophon should know that practice is not a "revelation" as it was discussed, with little debate, at a hearing he attended on 31 March.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority now believes Tiger Airways Australia is nearing a position to safely resume services.

Yesterday the safety regulator indicated it had concluded its basic investigation of Tiger as it gave the carrier a set of undisclosed conditions, some of which Tiger must comply with before resuming services and some that must be adhered to after resumption. Accepting these conditions will end CASA's application to the Federal Court about extending Tiger's grounding. Yesterday's hearing, adjourned from last week, has been adjourned to next Monday (1 August), the day CASA originally expected to conclude its investigation by.

The adjourned hearing was instigated again at Tiger's request, showing Tiger continues to want to avoid court limelight. Tiger has ruled out flying before 5 August as it has refunded passenger tickets until then. An announcement about ticket booking resumption and scheduled flights on and after 5 August will be made in due course, Tiger said.

There are two views to this. First, as has been suggested in local reports, Tiger could resume services on 1 August but needs lead up time to sell tickets (it has agreed with the competition regulator not to sell tickets while grounded) and prepare crew.

The second view is Tiger may not be able to comply with CASA's conditions by 1 August. A carefully worded statement goes: "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."

With Tiger's fate no longer a prime consideration, two questions emerge: how quickly will the public go back to Tiger's low fares, and will the carrier continue with the operational (albeit non-safety) maturity it showed prior to its grounding?

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority has rejected a freedom of information request to release the show cause notice (SCN) to Tiger Airways Australia, saying the contents could harm the grounded carrier's public perception.

CASA and Tiger have only said the 23 March SCN covers areas including oversight of maintenance and pilot training.

"The allegations made in the SCN and the responses by Tiger concerning them would, or at least could reasonably be expected to, cause damage to Tiger Airway's reputation - which may lead to damage to its business, commercial and financial interests," CASA said.

The 30-page SCN charged that Tiger "on a number of occasions" broke provisions of the Civil Aviation Act, Civil Aviation Regulations 1988, and Civil Aviation Orders.

CASA said those occurrences meant Tiger "thereby breached the condition of its air operator's certificate."

The safety regulator grounded Tiger on 1 July after further incidents including two breaches of flying below minimum safe altitudes. Last Thursday CASA sought an extension to the grounding until 1 August to allow it more time to complete its investigation.

Tiger disputed the SCN's allegations, CASA said. The carrier submitted an initial response and then a further response on 13 April totaling 42 pages which "makes submission as to why contraventions were not committed."

However, former Tiger managing director Crawford Rix disclosed at a May senate inquiry that the carrier re-structured its operations department and increased the number of local maintenance management personnel at its Melbourne base. Such roles were previously located at the global headquarters of Tiger Holdings in Singapore.

"Where CASA has made suggestions in relation to improving processes and oversight Tiger has taken immediate action and responded proactively with additional resource," Rix said. Last week Tiger announced he would resign by the end of the month.

No official determination about the breaches was made in the SCN and Tiger's responses. CASA said it was thus not in the public interest to release information that contained "no formal or final findings or conclusions about alleged contraventions or operational practices."

Privacy and defamation were also cited as reasons for declining to release the documents. CASA said the SCN and Tiger's response named specific individuals alleged to have broken regulations. Yet neither CASA nor a court made made formal findings about the breaches.

CASA declined to redact names as "some or all of those persons may be able to be identified by virtue of the factual matters raised in the notice."

It is becoming evident CASA has grown frustrated with Tiger. Right after the grounding CASA issued a pithy statement on Twitter saying "Real changes will be needed."

At the senate inquiry Senator Nick Xenophon told Tiger management that "a show cause notice may indicate a lack of satisfactory progress in terms of that dialogue between the regulator and the airline."

Rix replied, "I think the dialogue in general has been okay."

Tiger Holdings chief executive Tony Davis, who has since taken over Rix's role, immediately said the dialogue "has been very good."

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority announced Wednesday night it will apply to the Federal Court to extend Tiger's grounding until 1 August, but full details of the grounding's rationale are yet to be released.

Tiger can argue against the extension, but until the federal court in Melbourne approves or rejects the extension, Tiger will remain grounded. CASA says if it is successful in its application but completes its investigation earlier and determines there are no further unacceptable risks, Tiger could resume operations earlier.

Extending the grounding by three weeks shows how serious CASA reckons are Tiger's systemic flaws that allow an assortment of mishaps to occur--including two approaches conducted below minimum safe altitudes--or how stubborn CASA is finding Tiger in its unwillingness to change operations to a satisfactory level. Over the weekend chief executive Tony Davis denied there were any immediate problems with the carrier.

The full details of CASA's concerns originating from a show cause notice earlier this year are not known beyond the few topics CASA has released details of, such as pilot proficiency, maintenance control, and fatigue management.

There are two transparency comparisons to make. The first is from March when during a senate inquiry into pilot training and aviation safety a senator obtained a message from a Jetstar pilot denying he was fatigued yet extolling all the symptoms of being fatigued. The letter's serious side and implications were overshadowed by the pilot's phrase "toughen up princesses", but the letter gave explicit details of the type of fatigue being experienced--in this case, serious. Tiger's fatigue issues are unknown.

Even more sensational on the onset than the "toughen up princesses" letter is an example from America. In April the country's food and health regulator sent a public warning letter to Delta's chief executive detailing rodent excreta and urine found on aircraft. The letter specifies findings such as "9-15 rodent excreta pellets on the right aisle of the aircraft over seats C3-C7". While the mainstream media had a field day with such detail, the letter promoted transparency and that is missing in the Tiger case where the stakes are higher than rodent droppings.

CASA is not to blame. Its transparency is legally restricted, even though some elements of the safety regulator wish otherwise.

This page in April filed a freedom of information request to obtain the details of the show cause notice. The process called for Tiger to weigh in by Friday, a coincidental timeframe given Tiger's grounding. If Tiger does not respond by the deadline then CASA can determine to release the show cause notice and associated paperwork. If they do the public will have a much greater understanding of Tiger's situation. While some through ignorance or arrogance may misconstrue presented facts, others will fully comprehend the status quo, a situation they should be entitled to.

Grounded Tiger Airways hopes to announce by mid-day on Thursday a resumption to its services, which were suspended last Friday night through this Friday.

"We're working hard to address CASA's concerns & get our planes flying.Updates regarding svc resumption will be made by 1200hrs AEST, 7/7/11," the carrier says in a Tweet.

Tiger's optimism, and chief executive Tony Davis denying there are safety problems, are starkly contrasted to growing frustration from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.

The safety regulator has most recently written, "That's what we're working on. Real changes will be needed." Although there was no context to the message or indication if it was replying to a user's message about the Tiger grounding, the message was likely in reference to Tiger.

Since the grounding CASA has been outspoken about wanting to see safety and operational changes from an otherwise nonchalant Tiger. Whether CASA's negotiation through the press and public is working on Tiger will be seen by Thursday.

If CASA does apply to the Federal Court for an extension on the grounding, which at five days is the longest it can impose on its own, the court can grant an extension for a set period of time up to 40 days, CASA says.

Here are some miscellaneous items relating to Tiger's grounding.

MID-AIR RETURN
Tiger flight 5704 from Melbourne to Cairns was in-flight on Friday night when CASA grounded Tiger. The flight returned to Tullamarine airport, the ABC reports. According to passenger accounts, Tiger only said the flight was returning for safety reasons and did not specify exactly why.

PRIORITIES AND JET WHO?
The Saturday update Tiger provided said little new except that Tiger's top priority had been to mitigate passenger disruption and then work with CASA on outstanding issues. That order preference is either questionable or non-existent and stated only for passenger empathy.

Curiously the update said "Virgin Australia has also offered to assist effected Tiger Airways' travelers where possible over the coming week." Tiger had hitherto not mentioned any carriers providing assistance so "also" seems imprecise. Moreover Jetstar was the first carrier to say it would help affect stranded Tiger passengers, having issued a statement at 8am--nine hours after Tiger's grounding--saying so, but it received no mention from Tiger. Ditto for Qantas, who was the last to announce support on Saturday morning. The update was also posted on Tiger's website.

While some attribute this to some backroom-multi-continent agreement surrounding Singapore Airlines having a stake in Tiger and also a new joint-venture with Virgin Australia, the market may offer a more logical explanation.

Qantas offered to accomodate Tiger passengers but at higher fares than Jetstar and Virgin, so that could potentially rule them out as a viable alternative. Jetstar and Virgin's fares were largely the same, except for Melbourne to Perth where Virgin was $50 more, but normally Virgin is more expensive than Jetstar. That makes Jetstar a closer competitor to Tiger than Virgin. If stranded passengers get re-accmmodated on a Jetstar flight, they may end up sticking with the carrier and ditching Tiger, if Tiger returns to the skies. It is better than to support the normally more expensive carrier Tiger's price-conscious passengers are likely to avoid.

NON SEQUITUR
Tiger Airways will have a lot of talking to do about its grounding, even if a Tiger statement concluded by saying further queries should be directed at CASA. Tiger does not follow Qantas and Virgin in making luncheon speeches and other public appearances, so word out of them can be scarce.

Later this month at the Australia Pacific Aviation Outlook Summit Tiger Australia managing director Crawford Rix is tentatively scheduled to give a speech entitled "growing existing operations to meet an increase in passenger numbers". The grounding obviously prohibits expansion, but even before then CASA attached to Tiger's air operator's certificate a restriction on expansion as a result of the show cause notice. If Rix does indeed deliver a speech in three weeks' time, it will need a new title that is hopefully backed up by an overhaul in company operations.

Two months ago, before specifics emerged of CASA's show cause notice to Tiger and before Tiger openly discussed the notice, details on the matter were scant and this page filed a freedom of information request to obtain the documents related to the show cause notice.
CASA, the Australian government at large, and Tiger have still not made these documents public.

The original request stated that since the show cause notice was a safety matter affecting a company that engages in public air transport, the public has the right to know about safety matters that potentially affect them.

Taking a significant action like grounding an airline for at least a week, as CASA has done to Tiger, shows there are safety matters that need to be disclosed sooner rather than later.

To CASA's credit the regulator approved the freedom of information request but had to work with Tiger about redacting the documents since they "contain information concerning business, commercial or financial affairs of an organisation," a spokeswoman said in an e-mail message. But those redacted documents have yet to materialise.

Ultimately no amount of commercial sensitivity, a justification airlines are quick to hide behind, can surpass the worst case scenario of fatalities.

Timeline of Flightglobal's freedom of information request

• 27 April: Request made
• 23 May: Informed by CASA documents contained confidential information that would need to be reviewed with Tiger
• 22 June: Informed by CASA review with Tiger commenced 24 May and was ongoing
• 1 July: CASA grounds Tiger over concerns stemming from the show-cause notice
  

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority suspended the domestic Australian operations of low-cost carrier Tiger Airways at 11pm Friday night in connection with further safety breaches after the carrier was issued a show cause notice.

"CASA no longer has confidence in the ability of Tiger Airways Australia to satisfactorily address the safety issues that have been identified," in reference to the show cause notice CASA says in a statement.

The notice was largely about the carrier's training and maintenance oversight, and not any aircraft problems, although those areas of concern were not initially released to the public. The full contents of the show cause notice have not been made public. This page in April made a freedom of information request about the notice's content and is still awaiting an outcome.

"CASA believes permitting the airline to continue to fly poses a serious and imminent risk to air safety."

Tiger operates of fleet of 10 Airbus A320 aircraft in Australia. Jetstar's A320 fleet continues to fly unrestricted. Tiger flights between Singapore and Australia continue to fly since those are operated by the Singaporean division.

The grounding is effective Saturday for five working days, during which time CASA can apply to the Federal Court for an extension of an undetermined time period. Tiger says in a statement its flights have been suspended until Saturday 9 July and it "continues to cooperate fully with the industry regulator and safety underpins our operations at all times". Tiger says affected passengers will be offered a refund or opportunity to travel at a later date.

CASA says in a Tweet it will issue more information shortly. Tiger says it will issue an update 3pm Saturday.

The March show cause notice concerned the carrier's oversight of maintenance and pilot training, but not the maintenance and pilot training per se. Details of the show cause notice were not initially released. Tiger responded within the allocated time period and as part of CASA's evaluation, CASA prohibited Tiger from further expanding its operations, one of a number of conditions CASA says it imposed on Tiger.

"These required actions to improve the proficiency of Tiger Airways Australia's pilots, improvements to pilot training and checking processes, changes to fatigue management, improvements to maintenance control and ongoing airworthiness systems and ensuring appropriately qualified people fill management and operational positions," CASA says.

During the carrier's May annual results briefing, group chief executive Tony Davis cut the Australian division's growth for the year, saying Tiger Australia "will focus its activities on profitably flying than achieving growth in this current year". He made no mention of the CASA restriction.

As a result, Tiger returned to Asia an A320 that had arrived in Australia in April for domestic use but had not been permitted to enter service as the show cause notice was still in effect.

More recently Tiger had two incidents in a three-week period in June pertaining to aircraft reaching below-minimum altitudes, including one incident the night before its grounding.

"Since Tiger Airways Australia was served the show cause notice there have been further events raising concerns about the airline's ability to continue to conduct operations safely," CASA says.

CASA has previously grounded airlines, including regional carrier Aero-Tropics in 2008.

American Airlines says its suboptimal long-haul fleet and pilot contract restrictions prohibit it flying to Australia.

The oneworld partner discussed its network strategy in its application to the US Department of Transportation for approval of a joint business agreement with Qantas.

AA says the six Boeing 777-300ER aircraft it has on order (thrice the number it had on the books in January) "are not yet committed to particular routes" but "given that American is currently short on long range aircraft to serve its existing routes, American will be carefully considering where these assets will be deployed and how they will be configured".

Furthermore, AA says:

the terms of American's current collective bargaining agreement with the Allied Pilots Association would not permit service to Australia/New Zealand. That agreement contains a 14:30 flight time limitation. According to block times published by Qantas, service from Sydney to Los Angeles has an elapsed time of 14:35 to 15:00 depending on equipment type flown. Service from Sydney to Dallas/Fort Worth has an elapsed time of 15:25.

But as colleague Dan Webb points out on Things in Sky, AA can request exemptions from its pilots union as their agreement "contains language governing extended long-haul flying...on a city pair-specific basis only, which means airline management must secure an agreement with APA".

AA secured such an exemption for its Dallas-Beijing proposal (which did not materialize), and furthermore, as Dan points out, AA's Chicago-Delhi route has a block time of 14 hours and 40 minutes, five minutes longer than the 14:35 Qantas block time cited.

Regulators say permission to coordinate business, be it this proposed JBA or other anti-trust immunity cases, should be granted to carriers who show a commitment to the respective market and will bring public benefit. While there may be some benefit, is AA really showing its best commitment by saying new, range-opening aircraft are better used elsewhere and failing to disclose the full extent of its agreement with pilots?

The carriers are trying to brush off the notion of AA not serving Australia, but it is a significant matter and needs close scrutinizing by the DOT and ACCC.

Qantas and AA previously applied to the ACCC in an application that made it explicitly clear, but did not explain why, American Airlines would not enter the trans-Pacific route--sometimes saying so twice on one page. The application concluded the two "are not true competitors on the these routes and there can be no detriment to competition resulting from the implementation of the Proposed JBA."

Approval for the JBA, which targets schedule and fare coordination, would grant AA not just advantages of codesharing but also many of the benefits of serving the route without actually flying it. That seems to give AA no reason to enter the market, which invalidates their "no detriment" argument about the JBA.