Details of an incident with Tiger Airways - for prospective customers of Tiger Airways
4th of September 2008
RE: Claim against Tiger Airways for reimbursement of airfare costs flight - TT-7137 dated 4th of September 2008 & forced forfeiture of connecting flight DJ 329 Melbourne to Brisbane
This Claim relates to flight - TT-7137 dated 4th of September 2008 and passengers Ashleigh and Thomas Hunt. It concerns Tiger Airway’s refusal to accept our two children onto the siad flight. It was construed by Tiger Airways that Ashleigh Hunt aged 15 years and 11 months could not act as a responsible escort under Tiger Airways’ Terms and Conditions for our second child Thomas Hunt (5 years of age).
I believe there is a deficiency in the Tiger Airways on-line booking system, namely that Tiger’s Terms and Conditions are not presented at the book-in window or indeed readily accessible via the link. The only information made available at the point of booking was from Tiger’s on-line Fare Rules, which we read and assumed qualified our 15 year old daughter to escort the child.
Tiger Airways on-line Fare Rules state: Only one infant per adult over 18 years of age will be permitted to travel. Children over the age of two (2) years at the time of travel are required to occupy a seat onboard our flights. They are required to pay the full fare, taxes and charges. All passengers who have purchased a Flight Combination will be required to clear customs and immigration where applicable and reclaim any baggage and then check-in for their onward flight. (sourced from ttp://booking.tigerairways.com/skylights/cgi-bin/skylights.cgi on 4 September 2008).
With not being able to get properly directed via the Terms and Conditions at the book-in window we went ahead in good faith assuming the daughter could escort her younger brother (an age compatibility that exists with the like of VirginBlue and QANTAS), and subsequently booked flights. Under Tiger Airways stated fare rules visible at the booking window, we interpreted that Thomas was permitted to travel with his elder sister. Additionally there is no “fail safe” capability in the Tioger Airways booking system that would have alerted us to the possible breech of Terms and Conditions. As a result we have incurred a significant financial penalty.
We do acknowledge that we did receive the Terms and Conditions post booking. From reading the document it sounds as if our flights would have been non-refundable at that point anyway.
Therefore, we are requesting from Tiger Airways reimbursement for a sum of firstly $333.80 for our total costs associated with Tiger Airways refusal to accept transit of our children on flight TT-7137 on the 4th of September 2008. Secondly, as we had to forfeit a Virgin Airways connecting flight DJ 329 from Melbourne to Brisbane because of this complication. We also insist on reimbursement of $590.00 in fees and charges associated with our cost of the loss of this connection. This comes to a total of $ 920.00 in costs that we are seeking remedy for.
A further complication is that we have the same children returning from Melbourne to Launceston on the 21st of September on TT 7136, and want to rectify this issue so that they can return by themselves without one of us having to travel to Melbourne to escort them home.
Tiger has a policy of not allowing children under 14 years on flights unescorted by an adult, but this is not clearly articulated in a position where customers can make an assessment and then decide whether or not to proceed. The on-line booking system is not transparent, this information that cost us yesterday’s flight does not appear in the Fare Rules window, nor in the Help section and we did look at these prior to booking. We appeal for redress as it has cost us a considerable amount of money, especially when we had to book other flights that morning to get our children to their destination in Brisbane to spend their holidays with their grand parents.
Citing the Tiger Airways web-site:
Tiger Airways wants to provide quality service to our customers through meaningful correspondence instead of casual e-mail responses. We believe our customers deserve professional and well thought out responses to their concerns and that is why we put so much effort into researching and investigating our correspondence with you.
A further sting in the tail:Unfortunately Tiger Airways is non-contactable by telephone or email and only accepts feedback by fax. We have faxed our concerns through to Tiger on the 5th of Setember but have yet to receive any response.
http://[b]We post this on this forum site to raise awareness of firstly this apparent lack of tranparency in online booking, as well the "arms lenth" non-user friendly, system Tiger Airways has in place to deal with customer complaints.[/b]
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