TIGERAIR Australia chief executive Rob Sharp says the airline is doing everything it can to resume normal operations to Bali as an Indonesian aviation official accused the low-cost carrier of breaking its operating agreement.

Thousands of holidaymakers found themselves stranded in Bali after the budget carrier, a subsidiary of Virgin Australia, suddenly had its authority to fly to the island suspended. 

The airline was later granted a four-day reprieve to fly customers home and by Sunday had brought back more than 3000 passengers. 

The Australians have blamed the suspension on a change in the way Indonesia was treating a 12-month agreement, struck in March last year, allowing Tigerair to lease planes and crew from its parent Virgin Australia (wet- lease) and operate to Bali from Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne.

 A caveat was that it was not able to sell tickets in Bali to the  Australian destinations — something the airline has adamantly denied doing.

The budget carrier said Monday it was working on options to resume services “as soon as possible this week’’ but that parent Virgin Australia would operate two flights to pick up passengers on Tuesday.

Tigerair flights from Bali to Australia from Wednesday remained under review, while those from Australia up to and including January 20 remained cancelled.

The airline said discussions with the Indonesian government centred on the way flights were classified, including new administrative requirements that would allow it to resume B737 flights to and from Bali.

Alternatively, it might use its existing Airbus A320 aircraft to operate the Bali flights but it noted this was subject to regulatory approval.

“Tigerair Australia continues to work constructively with the Indonesian Government, and I am confident we are making good progress on options to resume services as soon as possible this week,’’ Sharp said in a statement issued Sunday.

The airline boss said the airline had temporarily paused the sale of flights to Bali but hoped to bring them back online quickly.

Sources have told AirlineRatings that problem arose after the Indonesians moved the oversight of the agreement from the department that looks after normal regular passenger flights to the charter area.

But an Indonesian official told the ABC the decision was taken because Tigerair sold one-way tickets from Bali to Australia and breached its agreement.

A spokesman for Indonesia's Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Agoes Soebagio,  said an investigation at Bali’s airport had found that Tigerair was selling online tickets on its website from Bali to Australia.

"If Tigerair insists it is innocent we'll let them prove it, and whether they deliberately broke the rules, that will be investigated," Soebagio told ABC News. "The DGCA will summon Tigerair to explain the inspector's findings in the field and we will cross-check those together."

The spokesman said there had been no changes to Indonesia’s regulations and the suspension was based purely on evidence of violations.

This had also determined the timing in the peak holiday season.

"Our inspector has found a violation, that is why we took action straight away,"  he said. "I don't think that was unfair."

Australian Transport Minister Darren Chester said Monday he had not been asked to intervene in what were sensitive negotiations between a commercial entity and the Indonesian Government and did not expect that to happen.

He said it was not a question of Indonesia targeting Tigerair and passengers had been caught up in the negotiations, which he understood to be the administrative questions about whether the airline had the right to fly to Bali beyond March. 

“But our embassy is certainly working with the passengers who were affected, and unfortunately for the passengers they have been like the meat in the sandwich,’’ he told ABC radio.
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Officials in Kyrgyzstan are already pointing the finger at the crew of a Turkish Boeing 747-400  freighter that slammed into a village while trying to land in wintry conditions on Monday, killing 37  people and destroying at least 15 houses.

But the company which operated the flight, MyCargo Airlines,  cautioned there was still no clear or confirmed information about the crash.

The freighter was on a run from Hong Kong to the  Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek.

A state-run news agency said preliminary information had prompted Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Muhammetkaly Abulgaziev to conclude that "crew error" had led to the crash at the village of Dacha-Suu,  near Bishkek's Manas Airport.

The Aviation Herald said the plane, being operated by MyCargo for Turkish Airlines as flight TK-6491, was on final approach to Bishkek's runway when it attempted a go-around but failed to climb to safety.

Initial reports said all four crew and 28 people on the ground had died but CNN later quoted Kyrgyzstan's emergency situations ministry as saying there were 37 fatalities and at least 15 houses destroyed.

Images of the scene showed wreckage towering above ruined buildings.

ACT Airlines, which operates as MyCargo,  confirmed the deaths of its four crew members and said there was no clear and confirmed information about the cause of the accident. It also cited 33 civilian deaths.

“Captain Ä°brahim Gürcan Diranci and first officer Kazım Ondul  are ex-military pilots who have represented Turkish Air Force for many years abroad,’’ it said. “Our captain has a total of 10,821 flight hours of which 833 hours are on B744. Our first officer has a total of 5910 flight hours of which 1771 hours are on B744.’’

The company it said it had commissioned two pilots to investigate the tragedy and was sending technical staff to site to help in the investigation by Kyrgyz and Turkish authorities.

It said there had been no problems reported during the flight and the crew had rested for 69 hours in Hong Kong before the six-hour flight carrying 85,618kg of general cargo.

There were no faults in the technical log of the freighter, which was manufactured in 2003 and joined the company in late 2015, and maintenance had been carried out “in a timely manner and according to the aviation standards”.

“According to the first findings, it is understood that the reason of the related accident is not caused by technical reasons or loading related factors,’’ the company said. “The actual reason of the accident will be shared with the public after the inspection of aircraft and the place where the accident happened.’’

Most of Indonesia’s airline accidents have involved pilots who tested positive for drugs, including a Lion Air jet that slammed into the sea four years ago while trying to land on the tourist island of Bali, the chief of the national narcotics agency said.

According to a report in The West Australian , Budi Waseso made the comments at a ceremony on Bali to inaugurate traditional village security guards as anti-drug volunteers.

The comments are another blow to the image of the country’s airline industry after a video circulated online last month showing an apparently intoxicated pilot in the cockpit of a Citilink passenger plane.

News reports this week said two pilots of another airline, Susi Air, owned by the country’s fisheries minister had recently tested positive for drugs.

“Almost all air accidents in Indonesia, whether it was just a skid or whatever, the pilots are indicated to be positive for drugs,” Waseso told reporters.
Earlier in the day he told the event attended by Bali’s governor that a Lion Air pilot in the spectacular 2013 crash had “hallucinated” that the sea was part of the runway.

His comments are at odds with other official accounts. After the crash, which miraculously caused no fatalities among the 108 people on board, the transport ministry said the pilots had not tested positive for drugs. The final report blamed the accident, which occurred in rain, on poor communication between the pilots and inadequate trading.

Lion Air, the National Transport Safety Committee and the Ministry of Transport declined to comment.

The grounding of Tigerair’s operations to Bali has been extended for the next seven days as a war of words erupts between the airline and Indonesian aviation authorities.

However, the airline is able to bring passengers back to Australia from the holiday island for the next four days.

Tigerair chief executive Rob Sharp accused the Indonesians of not honouring a 12-month agreement struck in March last year.

That agreement allowed Tigerair to lease planes and crew from its parent Virgin Australia (wet- lease) and operate to Bali from Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne.

The only caveat was it was not able to sell tickets in Bali to those Australian destinations.

However, according to sources in Jakarta, the Indonesians have moved the oversight of the agreement from the department that looks after normal regular passenger flights to the charter area.

Thus the Indonesians have changed the rules by which the airline operates to Bali and thus it is technically in breach.

However, almost all airlines lease planes from leasing companies, banks and other airlines often with crew – particularly pilots.

Yesterday Mr Sharp said, “Tigerair Australia currently has approval from The Director General Air Communication and Director Air Transport to operate between Australia and Bali until 25 March 2017.”

“This involves selling tickets in Australia between Australia and Bali. Under the existing agreement, we are not able to sell tickets in Indonesia and we are fully compliant with this.”

Mr Sharp added, “we are not proposing any changes to the agreement – we are operating under the same approval we have been for the last 8 months.”

The airline said it is striving to work through the new requirements but may have to use a different arrangement with its own shorter ranged A320s but this will take two weeks to put in place.

Tigerair said it is doing everything it can to support its passengers, including transferring them to Virgin Australia flights, providing accommodation and refunds. 

“We understand this is a busy period during school holidays and we sincerely apologise for the inconvenience this has caused,” said Mr Sharp.

All other Tigerair flights (all domestic services) remain unaffected by this decision
 

Long-range versions of planes that have been flying for three to five decades will usher in a new era in air travel in the next two years.

After the debut of the super-efficient Boeing Dreamliner and Airbus A350 widebodies in the past decade — as well as the A380 super-jumbo —  the object of airlines this time is to bring super-cheap travel to intercontinental routes with narrowbody planes of less than 240 seats.

New versions of the 737, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary this year, and the A320 family, in service since 1989, can fly routes of eight and a half to nine and a half hours or 6500km to 7400km. New York to Rome is less than 6900km  for example.

That means a myriad of new routes between Europe and America.

In Asia, airlines will have the option of flying travel-hungry Chinese as far afield as Australia, where Chinese tourism is booming. South-east Asia will be within non-stop flying range of the Middle East and Africa aboard the new-age narrowbody planes that, until now, have been the mainstay of short-haul domestic air travel systems.

Using below-cost lead-in fares – the modus operandi of the low-cost carrier business – smaller regional cities of the northern hemisphere on either side of the Atlantic will be linked for the first time for less than  $US100 each way.

After two decades without deep discounting over the Atlantic, trail-blazing low-cost carrier (LCC) Norwegian Air Shuttle – Europe’s No.3 low-cost airline – is pledging lead-in fares of just $69 one-way between Europe and America using its new 737 MAX 8s, which it is expected Boeing will start delivering in the next three months.

That’s less than half of the typical transatlantic lead-in fares aboard Norwegian’s 291-seat Boeing Dreamliner 787s, which the airline says don’t have the ultra-low per-seat costs of the narrowbodies.

The North Atlantic hasn’t seen such deep discounting since Britain’s Laker Airways pioneered cheap long-haul travel in the 1970s and early 1980s.

The 737 MAX 8 will have fewer than 200 seats in the configuration Norwegian will use. The airline’s current 737-800s, on which the MAX 8 is based, have 186 seats at a minimum 29 inches (73cm) per seat row, nearly as tight as Europe’s Ryanair, which squeezes in 189.

Norwegian’s strategy is to target smaller regional cities that currently don’t have regular transatlantic services, such as Hartford, Connecticut, and Providence, Rhode Island, both with populations of more than a million.

On the other side of the Atlantic, regional centres like Cork and Shannon, Ireland, and Edinburgh, Scotland, currently have only seasonal services to the US with larger passenger jets that are hard to fill in winter — markets tailor-made for a new long-range 737.

While maintaining more expensive Dreamliner services to JFK airport on Long Island, Norwegian will also fly this year to New York City’s largely unused fourth commercial jet airport, Stewart International, at Newburgh, about 100km north of the city.

Nearby Newburgh train station, with bus links to and from Stewart International, is about two hours from downtown New York – which in peak hours is nearly as fast as getting from Kennedy airport on Long Island to the Manhattan city centre.

However, if a $US69 transatlantic fare was on offer from Stewart compared with Norwegian’s typical $US189 on its Dreamliner services from Kennedy airport, there would be an instant market among bargain-hunters on both sides of the Atlantic. 

“Our planes are very, very fuel efficient,” Norwegian chief executive Bjorn Kjos said in announcing the airline’s first transatlantic 737 services. 
“We have a totally different set-up to other airlines. The Boeing 737 MAX has a very modern engine, which means it can go for a longer distances. 

“We’ll also be flying to secondary airports in New York – not JFK. That means we don’t pay as much and can charge cheaper fares”.

Norwegian’s use of the 737-8 MAX  this year to open new transatlantic markets will be followed in 2019 by the introduction of the airline’s first Airbus A321LRs, which have even more range (7400 kilometres versus the 737 MAX’s 6500 kilometres) and carry more people, tipped to be 220-230, fewer than the upper legal limit of 240 in seat rows just 28 inches (71 centimetres) apart.

Ironically, airlines are adopting the A321LR as a replacement for the Boeing 757, the world’s biggest narrowbody airliner which went out of production in 2004, even though more than 1000 were built and sold.

In the past few years,  US airlines have been using the 757 to operate long, thin routes over the Atlantic between the America, Europe and even Africa.

But Boeing discontinued production when demand waned after the turn of the century as airlines traded up to widebodies or down to smaller narrowbodies.

However, it has now revived studies into the feasibility of a so-called Middle Of Market jet to occupy the space between the biggest single-aisle jets and the smallest widebodies.

The 737 can’t be stretched further because the 50-year-old design did not provide sufficient space under the wing for the big engines than power the A321, which is higher off the ground.

The Boeing 737-900 was meant to compete with the A321, but is slightly smaller and has won orders from only a handful of airlines.

“The A321neo LR will have longer range than the MAX, so that gives us opportunities in smaller cities where frequency is more important than having a large widebody jet,” says Norwegian’s chief of commercial, Thomas Ramdahl.  “It’s interesting to see if Boeing is coming up with a replacement for the 757 as well because they will need to if the LR does what Airbus is saying it will do.”

The A321neo (for “new engine option”) offers 10-15 per cent lower costs per seat than a wide-body jet, Ramdahl says.