Budget airline Tiger Airways may be eyeing the lucrative travel market in Malaysia.
Some new destinations could include Ipoh, Kuala Terengganu and Kota Kinabalu.
The move follows its recent return to profitability, and to start afresh, the company has unveiled a new corporate identity to go along.
It said the fresh look reflects the company's "renewed purpose".
With six new aircraft expected for delivery by next March, Tiger is looking at expanding its Malaysian routes.
Speaking in Malaysia, managing director Ho Yuen Sang said the airline plans to increase frequency of its Penang-Singapore route from 14 times to 21 weekly.
The airline also plans to promote Penang as the connection hub via Singapore.
Tiger also expects passenger growth to hit a high 20 per cent for the year ending March 2014.
This is similar to what was recorded last year, driven by network expansion.
To go along with its expansion plans, the carrier has been renamed Tigerair.
Apart from just branding change, the company has been working to improve its operations, including reducing response time at its call centre.
Group CEO Koay Peng Yen said: "It's still important for us to focus on being a no-frills airline, that's what we want to be good at. (But) we also realise that it's not just about operating the airline, we want to focus on operational service excellence at the same time. So all the basic items have to be done very well, such that the customer experience - from the time you make a reservation on the website or phone app, all the way to the inflight experience and post-flight experience - all must add up to a great experience."
It has not been a great experience for Tiger over the past two years.
Its Australian operations were suspended in 2011 over safety concerns.
Overall earnings have also been dragged down by start-up losses from its associate airlines in Indonesia and the Philippines.
Paul Yong, vice president of equity research at DBS Vickers, said: "In areas like Indonesia and Philippines for Tiger Airways - where they are still new - we do expect them to be loss-making for a while. We are currently in an expansionary phase of the market whereby all the carriers are just looking to grab market share, so I think consumers can expect low fares and more choices for a while to come."
The airline recently got the green light to hive off a 60 per cent stake in Tiger Australia to Virgin Australia, and it has also been profitable for two straight quarters, after six previous quarters of losses.
Mr Yong said: "Both the current management and the interim management that Singapore Airlines previously jettisoned in, both played an important role in helping to steady the ship for Tiger Airways, particularly in Australia where they've helped operations to resume to pre-suspension levels."
DBS Vickers said Tiger has been working to boost its balance sheet, and it can look forward to better days ahead.
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A big revamp by the CEO. It is refreshing from the airline which didn't have a desirable track record. This rebranding isn't just superficial. Passenger experience will also be improved according to the CEO. Now it is more focused on making itself stand out from others, something that it should have done long ago. With this change, hopefully the fengshui of the airline will also turn for the better.
Singapore will soon become a hub for the repair and delivery of Rolls Royce engines in the region.
The British engine-maker has signed a memorandum of understanding with Singapore Airlines (SIA) to provide round-the-clock service support for its Trent aero engines.
The MOU will see Singapore become a centre for Trent 900 engine support with plans to grow capabilities to include Trent 1000 engines in the future.
SIA currently operates 83 aircraft powered by Trent engines.
The airline recently announced firm orders for 60 new aircraft to be powered by Trent engines.
SIA's low-cost subsidiary Scoot has also ordered 20 new planes powered by Trent engines in 2014.
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More business for the plant situated in Seletar. This must be one of Rolls-Royce's best decision to build a regional plant here in Singapore. SIA will also save more on maintenance cost now that the manufacturer is right at its doorstep.
Shares of Jet Airways slid as much as six percent on Tuesday amid new investor worries over whether the Abu Dhabi-based Etihad airline would get final permission to buy a stake in the private Indian carrier.
The Jet-Etihad deal, announced in April, marks the first overseas investment in an existing Indian carrier since New Delhi eased restrictions to allow foreign firms to take up to a 49 percent holding in the country's airlines.
But a request by the prime minister's office on Monday for the plan to be discussed by cabinet raised new worries about the fate of the deal. It sent shares of Jet down six percent before they retraced to trade two percent lower at 455 rupees.
Aviation minister Ajit Singh, who is reported to have threatened to resign if the deal collapses, said: "I don't see a problem in the Abu Dhabi deal going through."
Speaking to India's NDTV, he added: "Ask the prime minister's office if the deal is on hold despite being signed."
Etihad plans to pick up a 24 percent holding in Jet under the 20.5-billion-rupee ($344 million) deal that would allow the Indian carrier to reduce its hefty debt and expand its global reach by using the UAE airline's network.
But the deal, the largest foreign investment proposal in the aviation sector, faces regulatory hurdles, with various ministries raising objections over control of Jet after the deal as well as over bilateral plans for an increase in flights between India and Abu Dhabi.
Many of the new seats would go to Jet and Etihad. India's opposition has alleged that the nearly fourfold rise in flights was aimed at clinching the deal and could divert vital business from ailing state-run flagship Air India.
The Jet-Etihad deal would supply the Abu Dhabi carrier with hundreds of thousands of new passengers on its routes to Europe, Africa and West Asia as the emirate aims to become a hub for intercontinental air traffic.
Ajit Singh said Tuesday the deal's opponents were "long on politics and short on facts".
Federal cabinet secretary Ajit Seth was due to chair a high-level meeting of bureaucrats late Tuesday in a bid to iron out difficulties.
A parliamentary committee last month recommended the bilateral agreement with Abu Dhabi "be reconsidered by the government to protect our national carrier and the airports of India".
The committee charged that the 32 percent premium to Jet's April share price offered by Etihad "could be a backhanded way of obtaining access to the huge civil aviation market in India".
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Still dragging with the government needing more time to understand the deal better. One will wonder what may happen if the deal falls to go through. India wouldn't want a second case of Kingfisher.
Cracks in an oil feed pipe caused an engine to explode on a Qantas A380 over the Indonesian island of Batam in November 2010, Australia's transport safety watchdog said on Thursday in its final report on the incident.
The airline grounded its entire Airbus A380 fleet after one of the Sydney-bound double-decker super-jumbos was forced to make a dramatic return to Singapore with smoke trailing from its Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine and damage to its wing.
The mid-air blast sent debris raining down over Batam island in Indonesia, before pilots guided the plane carrying 469 passengers back to Changi Airport.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) released its third and final report into the accident Thursday, which found that oil feed pipes in the A380's No. 2 engine did not conform to design specifications.
"The ATSB found that the engine failure was the result of a fatigue crack in an oil feed pipe," it said, calling the investigation one of the most complex it had ever undertaken.
"The crack allowed the release of oil that resulted in an internal oil fire. The oil fire led to one of the engine's turbine discs separating from the drive shaft.
"The disc then over-accelerated and broke apart, bursting through the engine casing and releasing other high energy debris."
The ATSB also found that the oil pipe, together with a number of similar pipes in other engines, had been made with a thin wall section and did not comply with design specifications.
"The thin wall substantially increased the likelihood of fatigue cracking," it said.
Since the incident, Rolls-Royce, aviation regulators, and operators of Trent 900-powered A380s have taken a range of steps to ensure that engines with incorrectly manufactured oil feed stub pipes were removed from service or fixed so aircraft could operate safely.
Rolls-Royce also introduced software that would automatically shut down a Trent 900 engine before its turbine disc over-speeds to prevent a similar occurrence, while improving their quality management systems.
The ATSB report absolved the plane's crew of any error, saying they completed the required actions for the multitude of system failures and safely landed.
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The root of the problem finally fished out after almost three years. It is heartening to know that a similar incident will not occur again now that a new software has been installed to arrest the problem. Salute to the pilots onboard that plane to bring it back to ground safely when they were so near to total disaster.
IT started as a normal runway taxi filmed by a plane spotter from the sidelines. Then boom. The engine explodes.
The entire scene was captured by plane spotter Simon Lowe who posted his video onto YouTube.
Thomas Cook flight TCX314 was carrying 325 passengers to the Dominican Republic at the time of the incident at Manchester Airport.
On the Aviation Herald - a website that lists all the aviation incidents around the world - the accident is listed as a "rejected takeoff". But it's much more scary than that.
There is some debate on his YouTube page over whether the Thomas Cook A330 engine exploded or whether it was just a compressor stall. Still, the fact remains that a huge ball of fire engulfs one of the plane's engines as it taxis down the runway. Either way, that's not good.
Mr Lowe continued to film, capturing the response from emergency vehicles. He says it took them two minutes and 46 seconds to arrive on the scene.
A Thomas Cook spokesman said: "We can confirm that an incident took place at Manchester Airport regarding flight TCX314, during takeoff to the Dominican Republic.
"The aircraft developed an engine fault and returned to stand; as a precaution, the airport emergency services attended the aircraft - but at no time were passengers or crew at risk.
"We'd like to thank our customers for their patience during the delay to their flight; a replacement aircraft was used to take them on their holiday the same afternoon."
An investigation is underway.
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Pretty scary stuff if you're a passenger in the plane hearing the loud boom coming from the engine. But it is good job that the pilot handled it well especially when he brought the plane back into the straight line through the rudder controls.
The mishap happened early in the take-off run which is a blessing as V1 speed has not been met and thus a Reject Take-off procedure can be carried out. Had the plane rotated, it will be scarier for the passengers onboard.
Philippine aviation authorities on Tuesday suspended two pilots from budget carrier Cebu Pacific after their plane overshot a runway, saying they should have aborted the landing and failed to evacuate the aircraft which could have exploded.
The plane skidded off the runway in bad weather on June 2, coming to a halt on muddy ground beside the tarmac at the airport in the southern city of Davao.
All 165 people on board escaped unharmed, but angry passengers have criticised the pilots and crew, saying they were given no assistance despite the turmoil inside the plane after the terrifying landing.
Releasing the results of an initial investigation, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) criticised the two pilots for a series of lapses.
The authority's deputy director John Andrews said they should have aborted the landing when they realised the plane was not coming down at the correct angle.
And once the plane was on the ground, the pilots failed to immediately evacuate the passengers, leaving them on board for 15 minutes during which time the aircraft could have erupted in flames.
"In cases like this, you immediately initiate emergency evacuation. You don't know if the plane will explode or if the fuel lines were cut and there will be a fire," Andrews told reporters.
The chief pilot was suspended for six months and barred from serving as captain on a plane for a year, while his co-pilot was suspended for three months.
Cebu Pacific will also be asked to comply with an "action plan" which stresses safety over cost-cutting, Andrews said, adding that shaving down turnaround time between flights could cause mistakes to happen.
"When you speed things up, you sometimes forget something," he said. "We can say Cebu Pacific is safe. We just want to make it more safe."
CAAP officials said the airline could still face additional fines for the damage and losses caused to the airport.
Cebu Pacific said in a statement that it would comply with all the aviation authority's recommendations and would improve its training procedures, putting a new emphasis on safety.
The airline began commercial operations in 1996, attracting customers by offering cut-rate fares to local destinations.
It has expanded operations in recent years, now flying to many major Asian cities. Cebu Pacific boasts that it carries more passengers than any other airline in the Philippines.
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This is very poor safety practice from the crew in the airplane, putting all lives at risk with their incompetence. It is no wonder both pilots are suspended with the captain receiving a heavier punishment for his lack of situational awareness. Was training provided by the airline sufficient to handle such situations? If yes, why did the pilots do nothing? If no, then safety concerns are a very big suspect in the airline.
Japan's All Nippon Airways and AirAsia said on Tuesday they have agreed to terminate their budget carrier joint venture as business slumped amid management clashes, dealing a blow to the country's fledgling low-cost sector.
Malaysia-based AirAsia said AirAsia Japan would cut service by the end of October, just over a year after it started flying out of Tokyo's Narita airport in August.
"The joint venture... faced many challenges since its launch," AirAsia said in a statement.
It cited a "fundamental difference of opinion between its shareholders on how the business should be managed from cost management to where the domestic business operations should be based".
AirAsia chief executive and founder Tony Fernandes added that "it is time for us to part ways and focus our attention on what we do best, which is running a true LCC (low-cost carrier)".
Fernandes hinted AirAsia may return to Japan, saying its brand had "resonated with Japanese customers".
"I remain positive on the Japanese market and believe there is tremendous opportunity for an LCC to succeed," he added.
However, Shinzo Shimizu, senior vice president of ANA Holdings, told a press briefing in Tokyo on Tuesday that the venture dissolved because "its name didn't spread in Japan and it couldn't make profits".
The airline booked an operating loss of about 3.5 billion yen ($36 million), he said.
Another problem was that the carrier focused on online sales -- a key strategy for AirAsia -- but many Japanese travellers still book flights through travel agents, Shimizu said.
"We think that there is a limit to the strategy of simply bringing AirAsia's operation into the Japanese market," he added ANA would launch a new budget brand in November, he said, although the airplanes leased by AirAsia Japan would be returned to the Malaysian firm.
"We will announce details of which brand and aircraft to use, as well as routes, in July," Shimizu said.
News reports said a new airline could fly under ANA's other budget carrier joint venture, Peach Aviation, which flies out of Osaka.
AirAsia Japan was one of three budget airlines to come online in Japan over the past couple of years, promising to shake up a sector long controlled by ANA and rival Japan Airlines.
A key constraint for budget carriers is that they were shut out of Haneda airport, just a short train ride from downtown Tokyo and the staging point for the most profitable domestic routes.
Flying out of Narita requires a one-hour train ride from the city centre, a long-standing headache for travellers including passengers with AirAsia Japan and Jetstar Japan, a joint venture between JAL and Australia's Qantas.
The Japanese aviation industry has long been notorious for sky-high landing fees and fuel taxes.
Another no-frills carrier, Skymark Airlines, has struggled to offer the kind of heavily discounted fares seen in Europe and North America due to high operating costs.
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It seems that the collaboration came too quick and a market research wasn't done properly before Tony jumped at the opportunity of operating a low cost carrier in Japan. The aspect about Japanese consumer's "offline" practice shows that it is a market that you have to adapt to rather than the other way round.
It is sad that it didn't work out as well as another collaboration in Jetstar Japan. It still remains to be seen if the Japanese can accept this business model as such airlines are still struggling pretty significantly to make noticeable good progression.
