Tiger Airways Australia is working with the country's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) to increase the number of sectors it is allowed to fly on.
The low-cost carrier is limited to 22 sectors a day after a six-week grounding, which ended in September, on safety concerns by CASA. It flew around 60 sectors daily before the suspension.
"We are hopeful that within these couple of weeks, we can get approval to increase the number of sectors. But this depends on CASA's approval," said Chin Yau Seng, CEO of its parent company Tiger Airways, during a media briefing.
The airline will look at a "gradual" reinstatement of the sectors it can fly and plans to operate only eight out of its fleet of 10 Airbus A320s by the end of its financial year. The 10 aircraft are being rotated to help improve Tiger Australia's on-time performance, he added.
Tiger Airways Australia's new CEO Andrew David is working closely with CASA to get the suspension lifted, said Chin.
"Some things can't be fixed overnight. The relationship with CASA is important and Andrew is working on that very well and has given some degree of comfort to the regulator that he is the right person for the job," he added.
Tiger Airways Australia has consolidated its operations in Melbourne to focus on rebuilding its business in the country.
"Our immediate target is to get the operation to break even. But this is determined by how much flying we can do. At 22 sectors a day, there is no way we can make money," said Chin.
On Monday, Singapore-based Tiger Airways reported a fiscal second-quarter net loss of Singapore dollars (S$) 49.9 million ($39 million), down from a net profit of S$14.1 million a year before.
This was mainly due to the suspension of Tiger Airways Australia and the subsequent under-utilisation of its domestic fleet. High fuel costs also contributed to the loss.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
