Tiger Airways - Can Australia's Domestic Airline Market Absorb Another low-cost Airline?

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Hitwise Press Release

Tiger Airways - Can Australia Domestic Airline Market Absorb Another low-cost Airline?

Melbourne, 26 February 2007 - Tiger Airways' recent announcement of its intention to establish a new domestic Australian airline resulted in an immediate spike in visits to the low-cost carrier's website by Australian Internet users. According to Hitwise, the worlds leading online competitive intelligence service, market share of visits to Tiger Airways (www.tigerairways.com) more than doubled between the weeks ending 3 February 2007 and 17 February 2007 to gain 2.81% of the online Airlines industry.

Is there room for another airline?

The intense level of online competition between airline brands Virgin Blue, Qantas and Jetstar raises the question as to whether there is room in Australia for another domestic carrier. Hitwise Australia Airlines industry data indicate that Virgin Blue and Qantas accounted for 28.53% and 27.68% respectively in market share in January 2007. Jetstar, the low-cost carrier brand of Qantas, followed in third position with 15.81% share. Combined, the three airlines accounted for 72.02% share in visits to the online airline industry.

Market Share of Visits to Airlines by Australian Internet users

Source: Hitwise Australia ( www.hitwise.com.au)

In the Singapore market, the collective share of the top 3 players was more diluted, with Singapore Airlines, Jetstar and Tiger Airways accounting for 60% of visits to the online Airlines industry in January 2007. The UK was even more competitive, where easyJet, British Airways and RyanAir accounted for 44.13% share. While there are different geographical and population considerations in the Singapore and UK markets, it does indicate the propensity of consumers to compare beyond the leading brands for their travel needs.

Search Terms to Inform a Domestic Route Strategy

Although Tiger Airways conducted a website poll for Australians to vote on their flight preferences, Hitwise Search Term data can reveal destination demand opportunities for the new entrant.

The below table indicates that searches for Hamilton Island that resulted in a visit to the Travel industry have increased substantially between February 2006 and February 2007, overtaking searches to major cities, including Melbourne and Sydney. Other destinations to grow significantly in search term share included Darwin, Adelaide, Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast and Newcastle.

The Hitwise Search Term Suggestions report also provides insight into consumer demand, with top domestic variations on flights to including, cheap flights to melbourne flights to sydney cheap flights to perth, and flights to tasmania.

Australian Share of Searches in Travel Industry

Contact

For further information, or to request an interview, please contact:

James Borg on +61 3 8530 2420 james.borg@hitwise.com

About Hitwise

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,200 global clients with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search, and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into our easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement, and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Hitwise is a privately held company headquartered in New York City and operates in the United States , United Kingdom , Australia , New Zealand , Hong Kong, and Singapore . More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up to date analysis of online trends and statistics, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence Analyst Weblogs at weblogs.hitwise.com and the Hitwise Data Center at www.hitwise.com/datacenter.