Tiger Airways passengers up 54% from last year

Airline posted its first recorded 12-month period exceeding 5mln passengers.

Tiger Airways Holdings Limited announced strong operating statistics for April 2010, the first month in its Fiscal Year 2010/2011, according to a Tiger Airways report.

In April 2010, 507,000 passengers chose to fly with Tiger Airways, 45% more than the 349,000 passengers in April last year. Average Load Factors – the number of seats sold as a percentage of total seats available – increased 3 percentage points to 84%.

For the twelve months ended 30 April 2010, total passenger numbers grew to a record 5.03 million, an increase of 54% over the preceding twelve months. This is the first time that passenger volume over a 12-month period has exceeded 5 million. This new record was achieved with only 19 aircraft, of which two joined the fleet only in 2010.

Average Load Factors for the 12 months ended 30 April 2010 increased 6 percentage points to 85%.

Tiger Airways recently announced plans to set up a third Australian base at Avalon Airport (Victoria), and fly to more destinations within Greater China, India and Australia. In April, it introduced two new Indian destinations – Trichy and Trivandrum – that will commence flights in November. It has also introduced new domestic destinations in Australia – Darwin and Cairns which will commence flights in June and September respectively.