On May 3, Tiger Airways Australia announced that it will be establishing its headquarters in Melbourne, at the City's main domestic and international gateway, Tullamarine Airport. This decision was concluded after weeks of meetings with airports and cities across Australia.

Tiger Airways President and Chief Executive Officer, Tony Davis said it was a very tough decision as many of the competing airports put forward very strong presentations. Unfortunately there could only be one winner.

"We went through a thorough and detailed selection process and chose Melbourne, as it presented the best opportunity for the successful launch of Australia's first truly "Low Fare" Airline." The set up of Tiger Airways Australia will also benefit Tiger Airways passengers from Asia to Australia as they will be able to leverage on this domestic low fare aviation network to travel around Australia.

Together with its comprehensive skills base and long aviation heritage, the flexibility offered by Melbourne Airport, Victoria State and the City of Melbourne demonstrated a deep understanding of Tiger's low fare model. The State, aviation & tourism industries, together with the wider community, rallied together to make Melbourne a compelling choice, Davis said.

The introduction of Tiger Airways low fare model to the Melbourne market will provide a significant boost to regional tourism and ensure that travelers will enjoy genuine competition and an end to the inflated fares being charged by the current airline duopoly.

He also said that the selection of the base was an important step in establishing a successful new airline operation in Australia, providing over 1000 job opportunities and offering the competitive low fares that Australians deserve. Tiger Airways has now commenced tendering maintenance, ground handling, training and catering contracts.

"The Air Operator's Certificate (AOC) process is on track and we are now talking to a variety of cities about destination opportunities so that we can start planning our route network. We've also started talking to a number of cities about the opportunities for locating a second base in Australia."

"Tiger believes that Australians will embrace and enjoy its concept of genuine low fare travel. And I thank all the States, airports and communities for their enthusiasm to have Tiger Airways fly to their city," Davis added.

The Tiger Airways business model is based on Europe's successful Ryanair, which uses its very low cost base to deliver very low fares. "We certainly benefit from the experience and knowledge available to us through having the Ryan family as investors in Tiger Airways," Mr Davis said.

The initial year of operations will see Tiger basing 5 brand new Airbus A320s with a single class configuration of 180 seats. Davis said that the airline expects to carry around 2.5 million passengers in its first year.

Tiger Airways has already established a successful international presence in the Australian market, currently operating four times a week from Darwin to Singapore, and daily between Perth and Singapore.