Taking Tigerair’s A320 to the sunshine state
With the Tigerair brand being retired earlier this year as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, I decided I would revisit my sole flight with the aforenoted airline. Back in April 2018 I took flight TT852 from Hobart to the Gold Coast/Coolangatta.
With one of Tigerair’s receipt style boarding passes in hand, somewhat reminiscent of the days of Virgin Blue, I headed through security to Hobart’s modest departure lounge to wait for our 8:50am pushback. Boarding began at 8:20 through gate 2 and I settled into seat 11F for the two and a half hour flight to Coolangatta.
Pushback was on time and we taxied out for a Runway 12 departure, only holding for a few minutes to let a Virgin Australia Boeing 737-800 touchdown.
Our lightly loaded Airbus used a fraction of the runway and we were soon cruising northwards out across the Bass Strait and up the coast of the mainland. As expected, inflight service was buy on board or for those who had preordered and the crew were not seen again for the rest of the flight.
Before too long we began our descent into Queensland and the Gold Coast skyline came into view as the flaps extended.
Final approach into Coolangatta’s Runway 14 affords a very close up view of the suburbs, just before touchdown. Interestingly OOL sits right on the NSW-QLD border, with half the runway in NSW and most of the terminal in QLD.
The tarmac was fairly busy, with a single Qantas 737 alongside a Jetstar Dreamliner (VH-VKJ), an A320, and three A321s (VH-VWY, -VWU, -VW?). The disembarkation process was quick, and I picked up my single checked bag and was out to the taxi rank.
VH-VNC was retired from the fleet before the Tigerair brand was withdrawn, and is now due to start operating as AirExplore Slovakia’s first Airbus, alongside their 7 strong fleet of Boeing 737-800s, jetting out of Bratislava. Look out for my next trip report soon, onboard a Virgin Australia 737 from Brisbane!