http://mathaba.net/news/?x=618805
Tiger Airways Flies in the Face of Singapore
Posted: 2009/03/19
From: Mathaba
Mathaba news can reveal that numerous sources and an
investigation by our news network has shown a pattern of sub-zero
customer service and mis treatment of passengers by the
airline.
Customers hoping to either make a booking or to attempt to
complain about serious mis treatment by the airline are held in an
endless phone loop listening to a recording saying that Tiger
Airways is “center of Asia Pacific aviation’s low cost airline of
the year” without giving information as to where such a seemingly
fraudulent claim emenates.
Our investigators have also caught out the airline cheating its
advertisers – including Hertz Rent-a-Car – by placing advertising
in a location that is not visible to the most common browsing
window size, whilst allowing a slither of clickable area to appear
immediately to the left of the scroll bar.
This is a well known trick used by some unscrupulous web masters
to generate false clicks which concealing the ad from view, as many
people aiming for the narrow windows scroll bar to move down the
page erroneously hit the ad which is placed in this forbidden
position. Reputable web advertising agencies such as ads.heyu.net
ban any web site found to use such practices, and monitor the
display of ads on their network to prevent such abuse.
The DoubleClick agency handles Tiger Airways advertising income,
with both the agency and Tiger Airways earning roughly 50% each
from the advertisers which are being cheated by the airline with
its unscrupulous methods of generating false clicks whilst
concealing the advertisement.
Mathaba News Agency contacted the airline to inform them about
this practice and no action was taken, although Tiger Airways had
promised to have a senior manager contact the agency to address our
complaints.
The Editor of IMTnews.com purchased a ticket at Chinese New Year
from Manila to Singapore, and the next day Tiger Airways canceled
and reversed the confirmed booking without informing neither the
payee nor the passenger. The passenger was forced to purchase a new
ticket at higher cost in cash at Manila Clark airport far from the
city, in order to fly.
The Australian St George Bank, reputed to be the leading
business bank in Australia, expressed astonishment at the reversal
since the booking took place via their secure system which uses the
very latest and most advanced security technology, which our
ICT Editor says is vastly superior to that
used by Tiger Airways.
The editor who has travelled 59 countries on countless airlines
told Mathaba that in all his 45 years he had never had a similar
experience of the reversal of a sale, moreover without informing
either payee or passenger via SMS nor Email
about the reversal. Instead, the happless passenger was told at the
check-in counter at Manila’s Clark airport that “your ticket is
fraudulent, if you want to fly you have to buy a new one.”
Calling the various international and national call centre
numbers of Tiger Airways results in being cut off or having to
listen to the endless self-congratulating loop recording for
durations from over half an hour without answer to being cut of
several times after from only a few minutes to 15 minutes.
The Singapore number was constantly engaged, presumably from
irate former passengers for the airline, which sources in the
tourism and travel industry have told Mathaba has a bad reputation
for not being able to handle or not wishing to answer callers.
Other complaints include booking elderly into the emergency exit
seats who then have to rebook without compensation for fare
difference, and misplacing frequent fliers who book the extra leg
space room again without compensation. Apologies from the airline
are also not forthcoming.
With the western economic collapse and Singapore having banked
on the (western) banking system, corners may be cut while the
reputation of Singapore in increasingly as a high cost low service
destination not suited to tourists, and this is exacerbated by the
abysmal performance of Tiger Airways.
Tiger Airways as well as others with information relevant to
conducting an investigation and possible legal action against the
Airline, are invited to contact Mathaba News via our contact form:
http://www.mathaba.net/contact.shtml
