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Tiger in crisis talks with safety authority

04 Jul, 2011 11:48 AM
Embattled Tiger Airways executives will hold crisis talks with the airline safety regulator in Melbourne this afternoon, the first time the two parties have come face-to-face since the airline's Australian domestic flights were grounded at the weekend.

It comes as thousands of Tiger customers affected by the week-long disruptions struggle to find information about when or how they will receive refunds for flights suddenly cancelled at the start of the busy school holiday period.

Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesman Peter Gibson said the regulator would discuss with Tiger the two latest safety incidents at Tullamarine and Avalon airports, when the airline had breached altitude safety limits.

Advertisement: Story continues below CASA has been closely monitoring Tiger's safety performance this year, but the two incidents - on June 7, and June 30 - resulted in the aviation regulator grounding the airline until July 9 over "serious and imminent" safety concerns.

"We've been talking to them throughout the course of the weekend but this will be the first formal sit down meeting," Mr Gibson said.

"We will want to talk about the two most recent incidents, what that means in terms of their safety systems and their pilot performance and, of course, what the next steps will be."

Tiger Airways international chief executive Tony Davis is expected to attend the Melbourne meeting, as well as senior CASA staff.

While grounded, Tiger is still taking bookings and accepting payments for domestic flights from July 9, however Mr Gibson said passengers should consider potential for further disruptions.

"At this stage we have not made a decision on how long this may or may not go for. It will definitely go to the end of this week obviously," he said.

"At some point this week we will have to make a decision about whether we seek an extension of the grounding from the Federal Court. We certainly haven't reached that point yet so all that we can really say beyond this week is that there are question marks over their operations."

Meantime, frustrated passengers say they are struggling to find out any information from the budget carrier about when they will obtain a refund or travel credit, while some passengers have still not been contacted by the airline.

The website directs customers affected by flight cancellations to fill out a customer service form online, but it gives no details about how or when money will be refunded.

Tiger Airways' head of communications has not returned Fairfax Media's calls.

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Date: Newest first | Oldest first
I'd hardly call flying below a 'hard deck' @ Tullamarine a Safety Breach..

If CASA are going to issue such tough standpoints, at least be consistent with the other industry players.

The key thing here is if one can place prohibition on domestic airflights, the specific reasons why should be well known and well documented beforehand..

Why does it take a week to catch up and discuss ??

Can one assume that specific actions will be taken from this meeting, and if delivered, the prohibition will be lifted just as quickly as it was brought in ?

Posted by u3240456, 4/07/2011 1:22:24 PM

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