Tigerair Australia's most complained about airline

The Airline Customer Advocate says it received 1132 complaints last year, but the bulk of them came from one airline.

The joy of flying has turned into frustration for many travellers. Source: AAP

There has been a 13 per cent increase in the number of complaints received by the Airline Customer Advocate in 2014, according to its latest annual report.

Source: Airline Customer Advocate

The top complaint was for a refund request (31%), followed by flight delay or cancellation (15%), terms and conditions (12%), fees or charges (8%) and airport customer services (7%).

In all five categories, Tigerair received the most complaints.

The Airline Customer Advocate received roughly 47 refund-related complaints for every one million passengers carried on Tigerair.

Source: SBS/Airline Customer Advocate

In a statement, Tigerair Australia said, "Tigerair results were adversely affected in 2014 by airport infrastructure limitations and a number of flight network changes which impacted the airline’s on-time performance. Both of these issues have been addressed and the airline’s on-time performance has improved considerably with consistently low cancellation rates.

The total number of customer queries and complaints received directly through the airline’s online customer correspondence portal fell in 2014, compared to 2013, despite significant growth of the airline last year, Tigerair said. 

Of the total 1132 complaints across all airlines, the ACA resolved 648 of them, within an average of 18.3 days.

More people are flying, with passenger numbers across all airlines locally increasing from 69,014,406 to 69,501,821.

Have an airline complaint?

The government's Aviation Complains website says complaints relating to customer services issuess like ticket reimbursement, flight delays, flight cancellations, poor customer service and lost baggage must first be communicated with the airline.

If a customer isn't happy with the response, only then should they contact the Airline Customer Advocate.

The Office of Fair Trading can also help.

What is the Airline Customer Advocate?

The ACA provides a free and independent service to eligible customers of major Australian airlines by trying to resolve complaints about airline services.

It is funded by participating airlines and while it doesn't have independent power to make decisions, the airlines are bound by their commitment to respond within the required timeframe (usually 20 days) to all complaints referred to them by the ACA.