Last week, from Thursday to Sunday, Phill and I were in sunny Melbourne to see Jamie Oliver’s live show. There will be more about that later – right now, I’d like to use this opportunity to do a quick review of Tiger Airways, since there’s plenty of negative stuff out there, but not a lot of positive (or neutral, I guess). So if you’re planning to fly Tiger Airways, maybe this will help you.

The check-in process at both airports was pretty painless – Melbourne was much busier because there were two or three different flights all queueing up in the same line to check-in. This slowed down the process a bit and Tiger staff decided to open an express lane for the earliest flight, which meant everyone rushed to the express lane, leaving people who had been at the front now at the back – I didn’t think that was very fair. Phill and I were about third from the front in the original queue, so we decided to stay put instead of moving to the express line. I think a better idea would be to have the flights line up in different queues, so at least they are all together and not waiting behind people checking in for much later flights.

The staff were all very friendly and polite. I know it’s a budget airline and the level of customer service was not that of international flights – the staff were human, which means if you became angry at them for whatever reason, I think they would not hesitate to give it right back, rather than remain polite and calm. If you check in early (remember Tiger check-in closes strictly 45 minutes before the flight’s scheduled departure) and ensure your bags are not way over, you’ll be fine.

The planes themselves are really nice because they’re quite new. On the way to Melbourne we were offered emergency exit row seats for free, which of course includes more leg room, but on the way back we were in the normal seats. The room was fine for me – Phill wasn’t as comfortable, but it wasn’t bad enough to complain – it’s nothing different from JetStar or EasyJet. There’s a trolley service, but we bought food at the airport and brought it on, since the selection wasn’t fabulous anyway – mostly nibblies like chips and noodles.

The Airways crew were filming at Melbourne airport when we were leaving and I think we might have made it onto television. They were filming us as we boarded the plane and the camera man actually came onboard to film one of the passengers (I assume she had had an altercation with staff), which meant he was blocking the aisle and preventing people from being able to get to their seats. I was surprised at this because Tiger Airways is all about on-time departures, yet they send camera men onboard which disrupts the boarding and seating process.

So all in all, our Tiger Airways experience was positive. I found them the same as JetStar. Of course, you hear of horror stories where flights are cancelled, but both of our flights went without a hitch – we actually landed 15 minutes early both times! A downside is that there is no easy way to contact customer support. I’ve read about people being on hold for over an hour or being transferred from department to department with no resolution.

I think, to sum up, Tiger Airways is a budget airline which can be very cost-effective, but with all budget airlines, you have to be prepared for anything. Cancellations without warning and delays are apparently quite common with Tiger Airways (and remember they have a no-refund policy), although our two flights with them were fine, arriving early at our destination, with friendly staff and nice planes. The tickets were cheap and our luggage free (we were flying with only 7kgs of hand luggage each), so we paid a lot less for our journey than we would have done with another airline.

Have you flown with Tiger Airways? What was your experience like?

(And no, I am not receiving compensation in any form from Tiger Airways for this review.)