Tigerair adds on Sydney-Perth route Tigerair is launching Sydney-Perth services. Picture: James Morgan Source: Supplied TIGERAIR Australia is launching Sydney-Perth services in its first strategic move since Virgin Australia took majority control. The airline will announce today that it will fly up to six weekly return services on the trans-continental route in time for the Christmas peak season, with sale fares starting at $109.95 each way available from today. The kicker is the fares are available for the February and March low season and not during the more expensive school holidays. The new service, to begin on December 19, is the sixth launched this year and will complement the low-cost carrier's existing three-times weekly Melbourne-Perth service. The other new routes were Sydney-Coffs Harbour, Sydney-Cairns, Sydney-Alice Springs, Melbourne-Alice Springs, and Melbourne-Sunshine Coast. The Sydney-Perth route comes as the airline is looking to expand its fleet and its footprint as part of the expanded Virgin Australia group. It currently has 11 Airbus A320 aircraft but has indicated it plans to at least double its fleet to 22 aircraft by 2018. Tigerair chief executive Rob Sharp said the airline had been co-ordinating activities with Virgin, which has also been boosting its trans-continental routes using new widebody Airbus A330s with a business class and revamped cabin service. Mr Sharp did not believe the new service would cannibalise Virgin's leisure market and predicted its entry would instead stimulate the value end of the Sydney market as it had on the Melbourne route. "We're much more of the leisure, value end of the market," Mr Sharp said. There are timings of the day which suit that market, so we co-ordinate the timings and I suppose compare notes about market depth, etcetera. Mr Sharp said one of the reasons for introducing the route to Sydney was that four of the airline's 11 aircraft were based there. He said the low-cost model was about efficiencies and keeping costs low, and Tigerair was aiming to be the lowest-cost operator in the industry. The new route was being introduced by optimising flying and without having to pull off or reduce flying on other routes. "So optimising the fleet and the bases that we have in Sydney provides a benefit for us," he said. That was one of the strategic underlays behind this route as well. Mr Sharp said the airline's new joint-venture board had met three or four times, but he was not prepared to comment on specific plans for competitive reasons. "The strategy certainly still is to bring Tiger up to critical mass, but we're not going to rush at the market to just suddenly throw capacity at it," he said. We're doing a reasonably deep dive on where the capacity requirements are, where we see the demand moving over the next little while and what capacity is in the market as well. "Obviously, that's a hot topic for everyone so we're weighing all the drivers up and that will be the decision process, but we're not making any announcements at the moment," Mr Sharp added. Tigerair has recently revamped its retail offering to introduce hot food and Mr Sharp believed this would help with long sectors such as Sydney-Perth. While fares over Christmas would be higher, he said the promotional fare available after the holiday season would be indicative of lead-in fares on the route. "Basically you'll see a mixture of fares that flow through, but we'll certainly be continuing with promotional fares and that will be very much a continuing part of of the Tiger fare structure," he said. Tigerair was unable to make money under its previous ownership structure, but it hopes this will change after a rebranding in July and with its ties to Virgin. The airline's operating loss dropped $S21m to $S17.3m ($14.7m) in the quarter ended June 30, as revenue rose by more than 70 per cent to $S71m, consistent with a 69 per cent rise in traffic growth and a marginal growth in yield. Mr Sharp said the initial feedback from the brand change had been pleasing, as the airline built a platform for growth. "I said at the time that it wasn't just another coat of paint and a new brand - this is something that's going to be a bit of journey," he said. So we're very focused on just continuing to improve the business. At the moment we're focused on getting the basics right and delivering on those. The airline is continuing to work on its on-time performance, which was hit heavily by weather and airport congestion in Sydney and Brisbane in July. Mr Sharp said there had since been an improvement.