TIGER Airways and Jetstar Asia are the two airlines most frequently selected by Singaporeans while booking travel through online channels, according to travel search website Wego.com.

Wego.com took a snapshot in July of 50,000 Singapore-based users’ flight choices, selected while searching its own and its partners’ websites, including MSN, Yahoo!, eBay and Via Singapore.

Tiger Airways and Jetstar Asia accounted for a quarter of all flight selections made, with Indonesia AirAsia and Lion Air displacing full-service brands in the top 10 rankings. Tiger Airways alone grew its share of Wego.com and partner searches by six percentage points year-on-year.

Cathay Pacific increased its share of flight selections from four to 36 percent year-on-year, moving up to third place in the rankings, ahead of Singapore Airlines. This was largely attributable to its aggressive pricing on the Singapore-Tokyo route in the aftermath of Japan’s natural disaster.

The low-cost carrier boom is stimulating travel growth to closer-to-home destinations. Jakarta and Phuket climbed the top 10 destinations list at the expense of Shanghai and Tokyo, while Seoul ousted London for 10th position.

There were some notable downward shifts in pricing. With the budget airlines firmly established on the Singapore-Kuala Lumpur route, almost two-thirds of flights selected were priced below S$50 this July, compared with half in July 2010. Also, two-thirds of Hong Kong selections were below S$300, compared to only 30% per cent last year, driven by both capacity increases and more low cost airline frequencies.

Martin Symes, CEO at Wego, explained: “There are many factors at play, but it is clear from the numbers that the budget carriers have hit on a winning strategy in Singapore. Their next challenge is establishing brand loyalty – as more competition approaches this dynamic outbound market.”