Grounded Tiger Airways stops ticket sales

Grounded Australian budget carrier Tiger Airways stopped ticket sales Wednesday after pressure from the consumer regulator which expressed bewilderment about how it could promise to deliver the flights.

Tiger posted a notice on its website Wednesday saying "flights have been temporarily removed from sale" due to its grounding by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) over safety concerns.

"Discussions with CASA regarding a resumption of services are ongoing and constructive," Tiger said, referring to crisis talks in Melbourne.

Tiger was banned from flying domestically last Saturday until this weekend by aviation regulators over "serious and imminent" safety risks and could face a more prolonged grounding if a court order is sought.

But Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chief Graeme Samuel said Tiger continued to sell flights until late Tuesday for next week without caveats, despite having no certainty that it would be allowed to fly.

"We had said publicly that they could continue to sell tickets only so long as they had a reasonable expectation of being able to provide the flights that they were selling tickets for," Samuel told AFP.

"It's a pretty simple proposition. If you don't think you can supply the flights then you shouldn't be selling the tickets."
Samuel was tight-lipped on whether he was considering legal action over trade breaches for which Tiger could be fined more than Ausê1.1 million (USê1.17 million) -- related to its defiance of ACCC warnings.

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