Tiger Airways and Incheon City Delay Joint Venture

Incheon city of South Korea has delayed the introduction of a joint low-cost airline with Tiger Airways due to fierce opposition coming from other domestic budget carriers. Baik Eun-Gi, the Director General over the logistics bureau, airport, and port of Incheon, said that they made the decision to postpone the submission for a license. Due to the broad span of negative opinions on the joint-venture, they need more time to persuade others and gain more publicity, he added, stressing that this doesn’t mean that the plan has been abandoned altogether.

Incheon city, which is home to the main international airport in the country, planned originally to submit for a license in September in order to launch the new deal by this year’s end. The city and their affiliates own 51% in the Incheon-Tiger Airways venture, and Tiger Airways is the only other shareholder, having 49%.

The project sparked some strong protest from 4 low-cost airlines, Air Busan, Yeongnam Air, Jin Air, and Jeju Air. Together they submitted a petition to the transport ministry, saying that the venture will leave Tiger Airways effectively in control, as the city doesn’t have enough experience with carriers. They claim that Tiger Airways can expect to receive financial support from Singapore’s government, thus, they would be competing against private carriers with an unfair advantage. The airlines also stated that Incheon shouldn’t get involved in the aviation business due to them hosting the gateway airport of South Korea, which consists of supporting the private airlines.

Find out more at: www.tigerairways.com