Cheap flights: Tigerair 9th birthday sale offers $9 fares on popular Australian routes

If you're looking for a cheap summer getaway then Tigerair's birthday sale might be just the ticket - but you'll have to be lucky.

The budget airline is offering $9 fares each way for flights between Melbourne and Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, and Brisbane and Cairns for travel between February 1 and March 22 next year 2017.

Tigerair is also offering fares between Melbourne and Canberra from $19 and from $29 between Brisbane and Sydney and Melbourne and Coffs Harbour.

Tickets will go on sale from midday on Wednesday through to midday on Saturday with different routes on sale each day.

But it's not as easy as just logging on a booking the flight. For many routes only 100-200 seats are on offer at this price.

"Tigerair Australia has come such a long way in nine years and we're very proud to be Australia's most on time low cost airline coupled with the lowest cancellation rate of all the major domestic airlines, since January 2015," said Vanessa Regan, Tigerair Australia head of communications.

It hasn't always been smooth flying for Tigerair over the past nine years. While the airline's track record for punctuality has been strong in the past two years, it had the worst record in July 2014, as well as double the cancellations of other carriers (on average). The most recent figures put the airline's on-time departure rate at 84.7 per cent and its cancellation rate at just 0.4 per cent. In August 2014 it was above three per cent.

In 2011, the entire airline was grounded by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority after several safety issues.

Since its launch in 2007, the airline has expanded its fleet to 14 Airbus A320 planes and now flies 19 domestic routes. Earlier this year, Tigerair launched its first international routes, with flights to Bali from Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide.

See also: Airline review: Tigerair to Bali

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