Tigerair Australia

Booked flight on Tiger from Melbourne to Perth after flying other way on Qantas. Ticket suggested arriving 2 hrs early to check luggage in. Flight was delayed 3 1/2 hrs from normal departure. Check in staff looked disinterested and unfriendly. I'm average height and found the seats on the A320 very close to those in front and claustrophobic. If you are tall I would suggest looking elsewhere. Add up all the fees and the price difference to Qantas given the lack of service and comfort doesn't make it worth flying Tiger.

Way to Melbourne: Wrong boarding gate printed on boarding pass plane delayed 5 hours at Sydney airport while they tried to fix a problem with the computer management on the plane. Sat on the plane for over an hour while the stewards drank coffee and gossiped. No refreshments served and no assistance what so ever. Had to switch to Qantas as there were no other tiger flights. Still waiting for refund. Return from Melbourne: Plane delayed 4 hours due to late arrival from Sydney airport. Great deal of confusion among travellers with very little information provided. Many confused travellers trying to board Sydney flight who actually had their boarding gate changed. They were supposed to board from another gate and were not informed until last minute. Supreme lack of professionalism. Lack of staff lack of information and thus far lack of refund.

Syd-Bne. Started boarding passengers then off loaded them. Told there was an engineering fault with plane. 45 mins later we were told the engineer was in Melbourne and over an hour away from landing in Sydney. I had an international flight to catch the following morning and was told that maybe I should look at trying to get a flight on another airline which I was luckyto do and had to pay an extreme price for. I rang Tiger when I got back to Brisbane and asked for a refund and was told they would only be able to refund the cost of their cheap ticket and the refund would be processed in 3-6 weeks! They are very quick to take the money but not so quick to refund!

SYD-MEL Return. First leg of flight delayed 1.5 hrs due to insufficient staff for the flight second leg of flight delayed 45 mins with no reason given; flight time for second leg was announced as 1 hr 5 mins but turned out to be 1.5 hrs; first leg walked on aircraft-fumed tarmac in windy and wet conditions inside cabin was worn and dirty (only one of our seat pockets had a flight magazine and it was stuck to the back of the pocket with chewing gum). Announcements in the cabin with the volume at super loud setting - poor facilities at Departure lounge in Melbourne. It cost us $40 to reserve seats.

Booked Melbourne to Gold Coast 0630 departure to be in Gold Coast in plenty of time to go to wedding at 1300 on 19th May. Booked flight two months ago. Just received email stating flight has been 'rescheduled' to 1330 departure. Will arrive in Gold Coast 2.5 hrs after wedding starts! Have flown Tiger many times without problem. No offer of refund or to get put on a flight the day before. I know you get what you pay for and the tickets are cheap but it is still that a ticket at a time that I booked would not be complaining if I had bought a standby ticket but I did not.

Melbourne-Tullamarine-Gold Coast-Avalon A320. Flight delayed by 2 hours in Melbourne Tullamarine airport but inflight service was reasonably good. Flight delayed by 3 hours on the return from Gold Coast to Avalon but again the in-flight experience was acceptable. Crew friendly good service and food. Major issue with Tigerair is the ability to meet their deadline in punctuality. Flight cancellations is a major issue I've experienced with Tiger Airways which cost me dearly. Very poor call center customer service very difficult to explain things to the operator and very hard to communicate. Overall if younger travelers plan to go for short trips its definitely worth taking the risk with Tigerair as they offer dirt cheap flights and in the end you get what you pay for. However I would not recommend tiger airways for families and elderly passengers due to a poor record in meeting flight deadlines and a high flight cancellation rate.