Tiger Airways has received regulatory approval to boost its Australian flights, days after the budget carrier announced deep losses in the last financial quarter.
The Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) on Tuesday cleared Tiger to increase its daily flights from 22 to 32, still well below the pace of Tiger’s operations before CASA grounded the airline over safety concerns in July.
The six week suspension cost Tiger US$20.7 million, leading to a $38 million loss in the quarter that ended in September, the airline said this week. CEO Chin Yau Seng said the airline needed to boost its flights if it hoped to break even.
Tiger says it will use the additional flights to bolster core routes from its Melbourne hub rather than resuming service on routes it cancelled after the grounding. It will add two additional daily return services between Melbourne and Sydney and one each between Melbourne and Perth, Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
The airline said it would release an updated flight schedule soon.
