Singapore-based low-cost airline group Tiger Aviation is now hoping to launch its planned associate carrier in South Korea next year and is confident it will be able to start with international operations, rather than just domestic services.
Tiger’s group CEO Tony Davis said at a press briefing in Singapore today that Incheon Tiger Airways is now expected to start operating sometime during the 2009 calendar year. When plans were first announced in November last year, operations were to have begun before the end of this year.
Plans were pushed back in part because the South Korean Government introduced a new law requiring airlines to first operate domestically for two years and complete 20,000 flights safely before launching international services.
Tiger and other planned new South Korean airlines lobbied against the change and Davis says it has now been eased, which means new airlines will be given permission to launch international services on a case by case basis.
“The law has been rescinded. We are confident that we can convince the authorities…that we can operate safely and we don’t need a probationary period to prove that,” he says.
Davis says the new carrier, which is 49%-owned by Tiger and 51%-owned by the municipal government of Incheon, where Seoul’s Incheon International Airport is located, expects to start operating sometime in 2008.
He says “there is no urgency”, although the carrier will now begin the process of applying for its air operator’s certificate “in earnest”. Chris Ward, until recently managing director of Tiger’s Australian operations, recently moved to South Korea to be the first managing director of Incheon Tiger Airways.
Incheon Tiger intends to operate international services to nearby countries such as China and Japan. Davis says: “There are great opportunities in Japan and there are great opportunities in eastern China.”
Tiger Aviation now has operations in Singapore under the Tiger Airways name as well as in Australia, also under the Tiger Airways name. Eight Airbus A320s are operating out of Singapore and four out of Australia and the group has commitments for another 60 A320-family aircraft.
Before the end of this financial year two A319s and one more A320 are due to start operating in Australia and one more A320 out of Singapore.
Tiger has also been seeking for some time to establish a franchise operation out of the Philippines with local carrier Seair. This has been badly delayed as a result of regulatory setbacks in the Philippines but Davis told ATI today that he still remains hopeful Seair will be granted approval for Tiger-branded A320 operations from a base at Clark airport, near Manila.
Tiger is 49%-owned by Singapore Airlines and 11%-owned by Singapore Government investment arm Temasek Holdings. US investment firm Indigo Partners also owns 24% and Ireland’s Irelandia Investments has 16%.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
Source: Flight International
