Tiger back with a roar?

“The suspension was a culmination of safety concerns CASA had with Tiger going back into last year,” he said.

In March CASA issued Tiger with a show cause notice, and then as concerns mounted, the organisation imposed conditions on their Air Operator’s Certificate.

“Despite CASA having taken these actions, safety problems continued to emerge at Tiger….and by Friday 1 July CASA was so concerned about the slipping safety standards within Tiger that we took the extraordinary action of suspending their Air Operator’s Certificate. We had lost confidence in Tiger’s ability to operate safely,” Mr McCormick said.

And in fact confidence sank further according to insiders once the full team of inspectors went over the operation.

The apparent disconnect between then Tiger management and the gravity of the safety situation was highlighted by the fact that the airline went on selling tickets for a resumption of flying after a “one week suspension” which captured the attention and then the wrath of the ACCC.

Mr McCormick said that CASA conducted an investigation into the low flying incidents as well as a range of other relevant safety issues. “This was a thorough and rigorous investigation of the safety management within Tiger Airways that looked at the factors behind the incidents themselves, at safety systems and safety processes.”

However Mr McCormick acknowledged that Tiger Airways had cooperated with the investigation and had a constructive approach.

Key elements in that approach were the appointment of Tiger Airways Holdings CEO Tony Davis to head up Tiger Airways Australia and the signing of industry veteran Captain Chris Manning as safety advisor.

Captain Manning, formerly GM-flight operations and chief pilot for Qantas Group, worked with Mr Davis to revamp the airline’s safety systems.

However even with Captain Manning on board CASA had concerns allowing the airline to resume only with a comprehensive set of conditions on their Air Operator’s Certificate.

“To continue to operate Tiger must comply with the conditions while they are in place. The conditions cover areas including pilot training and proficiency, pilot rostering and fatigue management, currency and revision of operation manuals and related documents, improved change management processes, the appointment of additional qualified personnel in key positions, and amendments to the airline’s safety management system,” said Mr McCormick.

Mr McCormick outlined that a number of the conditions had to be fully complied with by Tiger before CASA could lift the suspension.

One of those conditions was for the airline’s 110 pilots to undertake additional simulator and ground training, which was conducted while the airline was suspended and resulted in a number of pilots being failed.

Mr McCormick added that “in the coming weeks and months CASA will ensure Tiger continues to meet the conditions under the Air Operator’s Certificate.”

And he warned that “any failure” to comply with these conditions will be taken very seriously.

CASA will carry out extra surveillance on Tiger’s flights through scheduled and spot checks with inspectors looking at Tiger’s operations in the air and on the ground.

“On some flights our flying operations inspectors will be in the cockpit observing the performance of Tiger’s crew.”

Answering questions at the press conference Mr McCormick revealed that there had been more serious safety flying incidents aside from the two recent low flying events.

“There were other flying incidents as well as those two that we mentioned…and we had concerns about the management personnel, and of course their communications within the organisation,” Mr McCormick told media.

Asked about the reasons for these problems McCormick said that the airline had grown from four aircraft to 10. “I’m not satisfied that we saw a commensurate increase in the number of safety related staff who were to oversee that increased expansion. So in actual fact – and I guess the clearest way to put it would be to say that there was very little change in the personnel side of it with four aircraft to 10.”

He also revealed that CASA had “concerns with the training that Tiger was using to qualify those pilots in the positions that they were required to hold in the airline.”

Responding to a question about how the Tiger training compared to other Australian airlines Mr McCormick said that “sometimes the training they were given by Tiger was not commensurate with the type and amount of training they required, given their previous experience, to raise them to the airline pilot standard.”

“And that was evidenced by, as I say, a number of incidents which are still under investigation in some cases by the ATSB and others which were related to flying incidents.”

Mr McCormick also said that the airline did not have “sufficient personnel” and its record keeping was “inadequate”.

On maintenance CASA was not so much concerned with what was being done but more in the control of the maintenance, who had control of what was being done, where it was being recorded, what systems of maintenance were being used and how that was being controlled from within Tiger, Mr McCormick said.

Tight Leash

CASA put Tiger on a tight leash of only 18 sectors a day and the airline elected to start operations between Sydney and Melbourne.

On the resumption of the first service from Melbourne to Sydney, Tiger’s Mr Davis pledged the airline would get back to basics on safety, reliability, friendly service and affordable fares, to try to rebuild faith with the travelling public.

But the general public’s confidence was already rock bottom before the grounding with Choice Magazine revealing that only a paltry 54 per cent of travellers were happy with Tiger.

Indicating that there would be no let up with the PR spin Mr Davis told The Age that ”we have to earn back our stripes.”

Mr Davis said that the airline had been downsized in the short term.

“What we’re trying to do is build the processes and procedures to enable us to grow,” he said.

Part of that process according to The Age is moving its administrative head office from ramshackle airport barracks to a modern office off-site, in a nearby Tullamarine industrial park, which will occur by October.

”We’ve expanded the size of the management team, so we’re expanding the offices,” he said.

But expanding its network will be very much a call that CASA will make.

A check of the Tiger Airways website on August 15th showed that while flights were on sale for Melbourne and Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane and Gold Coast were still in the system, although showing sold out for any proposed flight.

Thus the future for services to Alice Springs, Darwin and Canberra appear to be doubtful at best.

McCormick said that an increase in the number of sectors in September will be subject to CASA’s approval.

“We [need to] continue to satisfy ourselves that the standards we think that they are capable of operating at – and I might add, it will be a very high standard, given the five and half weeks of work that have been put into this – we will maintain or see that they maintain that standard,” said Mr McCormick.

Some of the conditions on the Air Operator’s Certificate have long lead times or end times and as such CASA “will be required to maintain enhanced surveillance to see that they are meeting those milestones,” suggests McCormick.

Tiger started off with three return services to Sydney building that slowly adding one sector a day to the nine a day allowed by CASA.

According to Melbourne Business School associate professor of business strategy Doug Dow, the airline faced a monumental task to regain public trust and he could not recall any major airline that had recovered from such a grounding.

Professor Dow, a former aviation engineer, told The Australian that consumer fear was likely to outweigh the facts about the airline’s safety and putting cheap fares in the market could exacerbate this.

“It’s a monstrous uphill battle for them,” he said “And that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve done anything wrong — it’s just that consumers will do what they believe and please. And once they’ve been frightened, I suspect it’s going to be really hard to turn them around.”

However global surveys suggest the airline will have few problems getting passengers back.

The 2010 SITA/ATW passenger survey found that just over 50 per cent of passengers made their airline choice based on price while just under half made the choice of schedule.
Only 29 per cent made the decision based on safety.

And many airlines that fly into Australia have experienced tragic crashes but are still supported by the travelling public.

And those survey results were not lost on Tiger’s management which pitched a $49 fare for the Melbourne-Sydney route.

Putting on a brave face PR spokeswoman Vanessa Regan said the fares were “selling fast at such short notice” however seats were still available on the first day’s flights.

However Ms Regan said Tiger was bullish on the pace and volume of sales for the weeks ahead.

And it was not long before Tiger and Jetstar were at it again claiming the low ground when it came to fares.

Jetstar disputed Tiger’s claims that airfares had risen 32 per cent since it was grounded.

“We certainly have not raised fares, we’ve served the public well by giving all those passengers Tiger couldn’t lift a safe, reliable and punctual service,” a Jetstar spokesman told The Age.

Regardless of the argument of who has the lowest fares, there is little argument about who had the lowest safety oversight and that it is a record to be utterly ashamed of and a record that has no place in Australia.

Disturbingly most of the talk back radio announcers who interviewed this writer were more interested in the impact on fares than they were on the safety aspects.

The statement that “the low fares had possibly resulted in the airline being grounded” seemed to hold little currency.

CASA is to be congratulated on its vigilance and it is shame it can’t apply the same heat on some of the international airlines that fly into Australia.