Monday, June 15, 2009

Flying Tiger

I am going on my first 'writing research trip' to Adelaide in early July and after a lot of arm-twisting, my mum is going to accompany me. Since the first part of my novel is set in Adelaide and I've never actually been there, I thought it'd be a good idea to go for credibility purposes! I also have family over there so it's a good excuse to visit them. I am just SO excited! :D

I was looking up airfares and at this stage am leaning towards Tiger Airways. They are ridiculously cheap; it costs the same return fare as what it does one-way with Virgin Blue or Jetstar.

But before I book, I want to hear from anyone who has flown Tiger before. My mum thinks that because it's so cheap it's bound to be dodgy and we'll probably crash. I told her she's being paranoid but I really would like to know what the pros and cons are. I don't care about perks, the basics are fine with me but I do want to know if it's really dodge or not.

So my little flying Tigers, what feedback do you have to give me? :)

2 comments:

Michael Hunt said...

Hi Sarah, I can only speak from another colleague's experience but from what I he said I wouldn't tie my itinerary to much in with arrival/departure times advertised. He found them to be 'quite flexible' in that you could fly end up flying 4-8 hours after the scheduled time.

Now I'm not saying the other airlines are any better at the moment and the cost may be worth it but if you are only going for a few days with much to do in the time you are there then the other options/expense may be worth it.

P.S. It is always a good thing to bring some 'snacks' in your hand luggage.

Iris Flavia said...

Well, have fun there!!!

Just a few weeks ago I saw a report on TV about German "cheap airlines".
Security is not where they save expenses.
They can offer for low prices cause they have only one or two types of planes - so they don´t need so many different specialized pilots/different spare parts and so on.
As Michael said, bring a snack, they save on service. Here it´s also that they take smaller airports that cost less. More difficult/expensive to get there, but it is a point.
Maybe the plane is not as clean as can be and they won´t offer a blanket and stuff like that.

But security is always taken care of. Seesh, I mean... what pilot would not want that to be an issue, huh? ;-)