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Tigerair Australia will offer nonstop flights between Brisbane and Canberra from September as the low-cost carrier expands its network from the nation’s capital.
The three times a week Brisbane-Canberra service kicks off on September 14, Tigerair said in a statement on Friday.
In December 2016, Tigerair ended a five-year absence from Canberra when it commenced nonstop flights from Melbourne. It is the only LCC at Canberra Airport.
Tigerair chief executive Rob Sharp said the performance of the route gave the airline the confidence to launch flights to Brisbane, as well as add an eighth weekly flight to Melbourne.
“We have had a fantastic customer response to our Melbourne-Canberra services since we launched them in December last year,” Sharp said in a statement.
“With eight weekly return services from Melbourne and three from Brisbane, Tigerair Australia will be providing close to 4,000 seats weekly through Canberra Airport or over 200,000 seats annually to the doorstep of the nation’s capital city.”
The Brisbane flights will operate on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays and have been scheduled as a mid-morning departure from Brisbane and an afternoon service from Canberra.
Meanwhile, Tigerair will add a second flight on the Melbourne-Canberra route on Friday from September 15.
Oskar Clare
says:Tigerair are really expanding in Brisbane!
inherentchoice
says:Would love to see pollies start taking Tigerair more.
Craig
says:Timetable doesn’t help if you want to fly to Canberra for the weekend.
Trash Hauler
says:If only VA would let Tiger expand more and keep the 320s then they might actually be a serious competitor to JQ!
Lechuga
says:Think Tiger needs a couple wide bodies. Then they can really compete with Jetstar.
Aden O'Keefe-Buckton
says:CBR-TSV or more preferably CBR-CNS would be amazing and would make it easier and cheaper to visit family in North Queensland!
Holden
says:@Aden
VA did CBR-TSV some years ago now.
The problem with routes like these are that are sub-optimal for the major carriers with A320/B737 sized equipment, but are probably ideally suited to E170 sized aircraft. I’m not sure that Tiger has the stomach nor the war-chest to do CBR-TSV or CBR-CNS with A320 or B737.
Perhaps you should be petitioning Air North to give it a crack. They seem to carving out a worthwhile niche for themselves on E170 sized routes (Townsville-Darwin, Townsville-Toowoomba, Toowoomba-Cairns, Toowoomba-Melbourne). Failing that, perhaps Alliance F70’s are about the right size.
Maybe Tiger should have taken the E170s from Virgin a few years back, with a view to growing the routes in the market space that Air North is now investing in.
Brad
says:@Holden
Very hard for a LCC like Tiger to make money flying a plane like E170 which has a much higher CASK than A320/737. If you can’t fill a A320, a route probably isn’t really suitable for a LCC.
Richard
says:Tiger is perfect vehicle for SE Qlders to get to the NSW snow each winter.
Tiger can do thin routes, just not daily. Now that they are going back to CBR, easy to do other ports from CBR, as long as they exist at other ports. Could even be once or twice a week for starters & expand slowly from there.
john
says:Sunday flights will suit skiers & it’s at start of Qld school holidays.
Alex
says:Not sure if some of you actually read the start date… but there is not going to be much snow in September!
On the plus side, this is great news for CBR. I can see TT taking over the OOL route from VA and potentially adding ADL. How long until JQ responds?
@Sunshinecoastaviation
says:Still no flights to Sunshine Coast, and they are still saying they dont have the demand!! TIGER what are you thinking?