Tiger Airways

Introduction

Tiger Airways Private Limited is a low-cost airline based in Singapore that was incorporated on December 12, 2003, and began ticket sales on August 31, 2004.

The airline was the first to operate from the Budget Terminal in Changi Airport in order to achieve operating-cost savings and its cost structure is modeled after Ryanair (Europe's largest low-cost carrier; an Irish airline with headquarters in Dublin and its biggest operational base at London Stansted Airport in the UK).

Tiger Airways was the first Singaporean low cost carrier to receive operating permits from the Chinese aviation authorities to fly to the southern Chinese cities of Haikou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in an announcement on February 21, 2006.

Tiger Airways is 100% owned by Tiger Aviation, a holding company set up in 2007 to manage both Tiger Airways and start up Australian subsidiary Tiger Airways Australia. Tiger Airways' founding shareholders were Singapore Airlines (49%), Bill Franke's Indigo Partners (24%), Tony Ryan's Irelandia Investments (16%) and Temasek Holdings (11%).



Purpose of Tiger Airways.com

The purpose of the website is highlighted in five (5) key areas, namely:

1) To promote Holiday Deals and Airline fares to consumers;

2) To provide easy accessibility to promotion for consumers;

3) To provide ease of convenience for consumers to book/purchase airline fares, hotel deals/packages;

4) To provide consumers with the flexibility to select preferred seatings for purchased flights; and

5) To provide worldwide accessibility for consumers to view info and schedules as well as prices for own consideration.



Tiger Airways.com Website Features

Business-to-consumer (B2C, sometimes also called Business-to-Customer) describes activities of businesses serving end consumers with products and/or services. Tiger Airways uses a B2C virtual storefront business model for their website which wholly operates in virtual mode. Unlike some other airline ticketing systems, like Singapore Airlines and Silk Air, Tiger Airways does not support any brick-and-mortar transactions.

Consumers can purchase tickets from Tiger Airways website directly without going through the hassle of calling a travel agency. Consumers can also compare prices and promotions instantaneously which make shopping more convenience and faster. However, this can be a challenge to Tiger Airways. Online consumers can be very price sensitive and easily lured always so acquiring and keeping new customers is difficult.


Consumers can easily navigate the website through the sub-menus on the header.

The sub-menus contains namely five (5) features, such as:

1) Home - Returns to mainpage of website where latest/hotdeals and travel packages are advertised to capture consumers attention. Also has a booking flight form for express easy booking of flights. The main page also has advertising space for other advertisers to rent the space for their product banners.

2) Flight Info - Shows Flight Schedules, Destination Maps, Flight Combo(Combination of flight transfers), On-Time Performance(Show Percentage at which TigerAirways strive to bring the best in terms of operational efficiency, safety and reliability.) The purpose of this page is to allow consumers and visitors easy access to additional information of Tiger Airways.

3) Travel Info- Tiger Tales(Online version of Tiger's InFlight Magazine), Before You Fly (Seat Selector, Luggage Size info, Fees & Charges Info, Travel Documentation Info, Children/Infants Info. Basically travel knowledge for consumers to acquire before travel.

4) Travel Services - Tiger Add-Ons (Select Seats, Check In Sports Equip, Luggage Upsize Policy), Hotels(A page to book promotional hotel accomodations/Partnering Octopustravel), Travel Insurance(To purchase travel insurance from AIG), Budget Accommodation(Form to find and book budget accommodations), Car Rental(Partner with Hertz Car Rental to provide Tiger's Customers with promotion on renting of Vehicles). This is a service page to allow customers easy access to purchase additional items/services.

5) Help - A FAQ page as well as main information for customers to possibly answer any questions or doubts that customers may have.

6) About Us - Company Info, Milestones, Sponsorship, Fleet Info, Carreers, Contact Us, Website Info; Everything about Tiger Airways as a company, a business as well as a service. Also has a section for contact information and careers opportunities.

For Payment Processor and Reservation System, Tiger Airways uses 128-bit SSL (Secure Socket Layer) technology to secure and protect your personal information on a secure server.

Tiger Airways website is powered by Navitaire.com which is a company that pioneers in implementing information technology and business process solutions that enable substantial profitability gains for their customers. Navitaire's reservation system now powers the world's largest airline Internet booking engine.



Tiger Airways.com Key Characteristics

Tiger Airways being a low-cost budget airlines, their website's main objective is to attract customers with irresistable and amazingly low fares for travel between countries. This is achieved as seen from the website's main page which shows right in the middle at the centre an animated advertisements of latest deals and directly below is a list of the promoted fares and countries.


Aside from this, the website uses its main logo colour/design which is orange and the black tiger stripes all throughout the website. This would make customers aware constantly that orange means Tiger Airways and Tiger Airways means extraordinary cheap fares. The whole website is designed to be user-friendly where customers can find all information easily by clicking on its relevant links.



Strengths

- Excellent design interface facilitates ease of use

- Detailed but not overly cluttered homepage

- Speedy loading due to the lack of flash advertisements

-Beside able to book air tickets online, there are other travel services like hotels, car rentals services, travel insurance and budget accommodation services. It is a one stop station, customers can book all the travel services at tiger airways website.

-There are ‘Help’ tab to assist customers if they face any problems.

-The website caters internationally not only in Singapore.

-It can be read in English and Chinese.

-Able to select your preferred seating instead of first come first serve basis. (Refer to Figure 1)

Figure 1

-Payment can be made by Visa, MasterCard and Voucher payment. (Refer to Figure 2 to 4)

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

-To ensure the safety of the information provided by the purchaser, Tiger Airways uses Verify by Visa and MasterCard® SecureCode™ to prevent unauthorized use of the credit cards through the use of a personal pin. (Refer to Figure 5)

Figure 5

Weaknesses

-Airasia has a currency converter function to ease customers for the trouble of converting themselves. Tiger airways do not have this function.

-Customers are also restricted by the limited choice of using either credit or debit card as mode of payment for their flight tickets purchased online. Paypal is not available. However Competitor, Airasia, allows customers to pay by paypal. (Refer to Figure 6)

Figure 6

-Waiting time in the searching of available flight will take a few minutes before results are out. Users may not have the patience to wait for such a long time.



Critical Analysis

Technology advancement such as ecommerce and the internet have made the global markets become easily accessible to every parts of the world. It enables consumers to get the most suitable products and services they want through the internet without the hassle of going down to the shops. Due to this convenience, consumers can compare prices and benefits at the shortest time at their own convenience. Payments can be made online, usually by major credit/debit cards. There are some companies which provide deliver service, this save the consumers a lot of time. Tiger Airways is a ticket-less airline. To facilitate convenience and environment- free, the printed Flight Itinerary along with your passport and visas where applicable are all you need for checking in.