Establishment
Tiger Airways Singapore was incorporated on 12 December 2003 and began ticket sales on 31 August 2004. It has its head office in the Honeywell Building in Changi, Singapore.[5]
Services commenced on 15 September 2004 to Bangkok.[6][7] Scheduled international services are operated from Singapore Changi Airport. The airline is a subsidiary of Tiger Airways Holdings, a Singapore-based company.
In 2006, the airline flew 1.2 million passengers, a growth of 75% from the previous year.
The airline was the first to operate from the Budget Terminal at Changi Airport as part of its cost-saving operations structure, similar to Ryanair's. Despite regional competition, the airline has reiterated its current intention to remain focused on flying within a five-hour radius from its Singaporean base.
As of 25 September 2012, Tigerair Singapore operates from Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 2 due to the demolition of the Budget Terminal to make way for Terminal 4, completed in 2017.
Route strategy
The airline encountered a period of relative difficulty for the aviation industry with rising oil prices and intense competition from other airlines. The airline held off imposing fuel surcharges as its competitors had done.
With Singapore Airlines (SIA) having a stake in the airline, the airline occasionally fills in the gap when SIA drops its services from certain destinations. Macau, once served by SIA before being taken up by its subsidiary, SilkAir, in 2002, terminated all flights completely by the end of 2004. Three months later, the route was taken over by Tigerair with flights commencing 25 March 2005. A similar pattern can be observed in Krabi, where SilkAir suspended services in February 2005 in the wake of the effects of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Tigerair resumed direct services to the location on 7 October 2005.
In late July 2005, it was announced that the airline would commence flights from Macau to Manila (Clark) on 30 October 2005, a much-heralded move as it may signal the establishment of a secondary base besides Singapore, allowing the airline to expand and diversify risks.
On 21 September 2005, the company produced a report card on its first year of operations, with a total of over 500,000 passengers carried, 5000 scheduled flights flown, and a flight completion rate of 98.7 per cent. 94 per cent of flight departures and 90 per cent of arrivals took place according to schedule. It acquired four aircraft and launched a total of nine routes – of which four are flown exclusively by the airline – during the year.
The airline expected to increase its fleet to nine Airbus A320 aircraft by end-2006, and to carry up to three million passengers a year by then. It also hoped to add six more routes during the year, primarily to destinations in China and India, with flights to Southern China having commenced in April.
Merging with Scoot
On 4 November 2016, the parent company of Tigerair, Singapore Airlines announced a merger of Tigerair and Scoot with Tigerair coming into the Scoot brand.[9] It will allow both airlines to achieve synergies in fare costs and revenue and operate under the same Air operator's certificate or AOC. Tigerair officially merged with Scoot and began operating under the Scoot brand on 25 July 2017, while the rebranding will leave the joint-venture Tigerair Australia and Tigerair Taiwan intact as Tigerair Australia 100% owned by Virgin Australia (Virgin Australia retains the Tigerair name and acquire the brand rights for Tigerair to operate to some international destinations from Australia.), while Tigerair Taiwan co-owned by China Airlines (80%) and its subsidiary Mandarin Airlines (10%) (with Tigerair hold 10%), respectively.[9]
On July 25, 2017, Scoot changed its IATA code from TZ to TR because Tigerair used TR, and also changed their ICAO code from SCO to TGW.
On 13 January 2022, Tigerair Taiwan bought "Tigerair" brand ownership from Tigerair, making the company the sole brand owner.[10]
