If you ask Australia’s ombudsman, they’ll tell you that based on incoming complaints and investigations, Tigerair is the lowest-performing airline in Australia.
The government-appointed group designated with the task of handling customer complaints, conducting investigations and performing audits has found the budget airline not only received the highest number of customer grievances, but the number of incoming complaints is rising.
Published in the 2014 Airline Customer Adovcate report, it was the third time the airline received the number one position as the lowest-performing Australian airline.
This comes despite Virgin’s acquisition of the carrier and its recent initiatives of making the business more customer friendly through fun, viral football videos and recent airport upgrades designed to enhance the customer experience.
The carrier says it has resolved a number of the issues.
The budget carrier, received an average of 41.7 complaints for refund requests alone last year. This is higher than other Australian airlines – 11 for Jetstar; 7.5 for Virgin Australia; 4.4 for Qantas; and 2.8 for Regional Express.
Meanwhile, Tigerair also received the most grievances over flight delays or cancellations, followed by Jetstar, Virgin and then Qantas.
A spokesperson for the carrier said in a statement to KarryOn that the airline is working closely with the Airline Customer Advocate (ACA) to build strategies that will improve its results moving forward.
The statement said the airline has made ‘significant progress’ throughout the year in the area of customer satisfaction.
And despite the increase of complaints through the ombudsman, total number of customer queries and complaints received directly through the airline decreased last year compared to the prior year.
“Tigerair’s most recent independent customer satisfaction survey shows a marked improvement of over nine percentage points since March 2014, with 75% of customers surveyed in April 2015 satisfied with the Tigerair Australia experience.”
Vanessa Regan, Tigerair Spokesperson
In total, around 1,132 complaints were received against Australian airlines; 1,071 were finalised; and 648 were resolved.
Top five complaint issues were refund request; flight delay or cancellation; terms and conditions; fees and charges; and airport customer service.
The airline is focusing on improving the customer experience through new tech.
Earlier this month, Tigerair made a commitment to improving its customer experience, by introducing two new customer facing innovations.
The technological upgrades were made to both the terminal at select airports and through its website.
