30 October 2007

Flying Tigers

| Pandy
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The Canberra Times reports that Tiger Airways will be flying initially from Canberra to Melbourne from February 2008 with fares ranging from $40 to $50 one way and special fares of $10, taxes included. Fortunately the flights go to Tullamarine.

Well I went and made a booking today for a holiday in Victoria in March. So the fares might be cheap but here is the sting in the tail (pun intended):

Check-in closes promptly 45 minutes before departure. It is recommended that you check-in 2 hours before hand.
Luggage allowance is 15kgs. A sliding scale of charges applies for each extra 5kgs of luggage from $25 per sector. But these are on-line charges. If you pay at the time of boarding you may expect to FROM 3 times this amount; ie $75 for the 1st extra 5kg.

Then what about booking the seat of your choice? A bit confusing but it seems that the on-line default is $25 per seat per sector.

I wonder what their inflight catering charges will be like?

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Woo Hoo Tiger!

80 bucks for the whole family to go to Melb and back to watch the footy next June! Excellent marketing announcing these cheap fares the same week as the 2008 AFL fixture is released.

Who cares about 45 min check-in cut off and 15kg per person? For 80 bucks you can’t go wrong.

Remember they still have to abide by all rules to fly in Aus – the frills are just extra dollars that I don’t need.

Lord Mælinar9:34 am 31 Oct 07

Any leakages from Zeppelin transport will contribute to GhG, rather than eradicate them.

Carbon negative if you exclude production and process as a necessary element, and work out some convenient method of carbon-friendly helium production.

Powered by greenhouses gasses.

Lord Mælinar8:52 am 31 Oct 07

Zeppelin transport between Sydney and Canberra is the transportation solution of the future.

Felix the Cat10:41 pm 30 Oct 07

[i]Anyway, that’s been my experience of the great Sydney trips of late, anyone else can’t see the value in flying such a short distance nowadays?[/i]

Murrays Coaches FTW! $37 each way to Sydney or $60 return if going up and back in a day. Add $3 (?) ACTION bus fare to Jolimont plus $? for Sydney train to where ever you are going. Seats on Murrays coaches though, have to be the most unergonomic and uncomfortable I have ever been in. Get what you pay for I guess.

Yeah exactly, that’s why I reckon a fast train could well have a place on this route – if they can do without the check-in malarky it wouldn’t take much for it to be faster and more comfortable than the aircraft option, so they could afford to charge the same.

Have you noticed flying to Sydney ain’t what it used to be? In the good old days the trip up the Hume took 5 hours, whereas you could rock up to the airport not long before your Friendship waited outside the little white fence out the front of the terminal. You wandered out to it and more often than not you could see the pilots up the front flying you to an unevetful landing in Sydney 35 minutes later.

Even with waiting time at each end the time saving was in the order of 3-4 hours CBD to CBD.

Nowadays what have we got? You have to book your taxi to the airport 30 minutes before your preferred time as there’s a fair chance the taxi will be late or not even turn up. You are brave if you arrive at check-in queue later than 45 mins before departure. The flight still takes 35 mins (or 23 mins by 737) but with ATC in Sydney always playing games it’s often a full 50 minutes of air time. At Sydney Airport, once you’ve walked the 5km between the Dash-8 gates and the taxi rank, you can sometimes wait up to 30-40 mins to get on a cab. The total time for the air trip? Usually around 2.5 hours CBD to CBD. And the all up cost with cabs at each end is likely to be around $250 each way.

Contrast that with a trip up by car. Out of absolute peak times, CBD to CBD is about 3 hours. Cost about $80 each way allowing for a bit of wear and tear, parking in Sydney, and tolls. Sure it’s not as relaxing but when you think you’re paying yourself about $70 per hour to drive yourself it’s pretty good value.

Another way to be even smarter is to drive in to a suburban rail station from Campbelltown on and catch a train in and out, thereby avoiding the worst of the Sydney traffic as well.

Anyway, that’s been my experience of the great Sydney trips of late, anyone else can’t see the value in flying such a short distance nowadays?

I recently flew both easyJet and Ryanair (who have strict check-in conditions and baggage allowances).

I can imagine a few people (who don’t read the conditions!) getting into a little trouble.

But my own experience was entirely pleasant.

My mistake,

I should have said sallyann60.

Doing a google search on Riotact, shows no previous post by sallyann60 and only one from a sallyann

Was sallyann60 created only today? If so, I would suggest that sallyann60 is a sockpuppet from one of my loyal readers.

Also interesting that this random post appeared the day I outed Vote1Reynolds.com

Nah, mere coincidence.

Lord Mælinar10:50 am 30 Oct 07

I used to know a sallyanne. LG would probably remember sallyanne as well.

Oh Sallyanne60,

Interesting, that as the email addresses have not been able to be seen on Riotact, for some months, you have totally unrelated to my trip to Victoria have decided at this time to remember my email address now. You a sock puppet for whom I wonder? And why did you miss the post I made to the Vietnam and China forums?

Oh I forgot all about that post. It was an interesting stir and got the reaction I wanted at the time. I never check that email adrress anyway. But if you are interested sallyann contact me.

But checking on the responses to the thread I started, I see that there are a few gay enquiries. Any fat gay bears (it is alt.russia you know) reading this and are interested? 😉

Ingeegoodbee10:03 am 30 Oct 07

Oh Pandy, you sly dog you ….Rrrrrrrrrrr

Jonathon Reynolds9:39 am 30 Oct 07

Gold!

Oh, how sweet…. are you meeting your new wife? I hope she doesnt have too much luggage…

Subject: Looking for a Baltic wife

From: Andy
news:

Between 35 and 45.

Must not be fat, understand English. Under 170cms.

Ethnicity not a problem.

Children no problem. That is, I don’t care if you have any but I will
not adopt them.

Wants to move to Australia.

Respond with photos to my email address.

Genuine offers only.

http://www-wireless.usenet-replayer.com/data/alt/russia/631.html

I say welcome Tiger! $10 is cheaper than a taxi to the airport so I think the conditions are pretty reasonable. Even if they slug you extra for luggage over 15kg, it is probably still going to be a hell of a lot cheaper than the other two operators on that sector.

swissbignose8:51 am 30 Oct 07

You’ll find that only Qantas fly Canberra to Sydney. Virgin are going to start flying with their new Embraer jets on the 4th of February, 2008.

The only way to compete with Qantas is to provide the flexibility in schedules to accommodate the (often Public Sector) travellers that don’t want to hang around in Sydney (or Canberra) once their meeting is finished.

That, and a lounge that gives you free stuff, and some frequent flyer points to boot.

It’s a tough ask for any new entrant.

A high-speed rail link however…

Tiger have dashed everybody’s hopes by only flying to Melbourne. People are crying out for a cheap airfare to Sydney but all we get are more flights to bleak city. A low cost carrier is urgently needed on the Sydney route to provide competition for Virgin (on the ridiculous) and Quaint Arse.

I flew EasyJet in the UK, and they’re not kidding when they say check-in closes promptly. 2 hours and 50 pounds later, I was able to reschedule but lost any saving by flying a discount airline.

My worst flight EVER was with Ryan Air. Aberdeen to Glasgow, mid-January, pitch black outside, we appeared to be passing through some sort of hurricane. But credit to the pilot for bringing us down OK.

Will they sell Tiger beer?

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