Singapore Airlines and Tony Ryan, the founder of the European budget airline Ryanair, want to bring low-cost budget flights to the far east.
But the choice of name for their new venture, Tiger Airways, has not gone down well with Chris Rollings and his partner, Tizi Hodson, in Gloucester. The couple's company, which offers flying lessons in open cockpit, two-seater Tiger Moths has been called Tiger Airways since it was launched in 2001.
Now Mr Rollings, who is the company's flight operations director, says he is going to fight to keep the name.
"If this goes ahead it will have a dramatic impact on our business," he said. "A large proportion of our customers come through the internet and at the moment when you type in Tiger Airways you get us, if this goes ahead when you type in Tiger Airways it will throw up pages and pages of information about a low-cost carrier in Asia. We are obviously not trying to compete with someone like Singapore Airlines but unless something is done we could be in real trouble."
The company owns two aircraft and leases a third. The Tiger Moth was used by the RAF to train pilots in the second world war and Mr Rollings said many people remain fascinated by the "open-cockpit" experience.
Mr Rollings has applied to register Tiger Airways as a UK trademark.
Solicitors acting for Singapore Airlines and Mr Ryan are set to launch their no-frills Asian carrier later this year.
They have applied to register its name as a trademark to the European Union's trademarks and designs section of the office for the harmonisation of the internal market.
But Mr Rollings says he has already sent a form objecting to the application, but that will not be heard for another four months.
"At the moment all we can do is see what happens and hope that we can sort this out so we can carry on with our business."
A spokesman for Singapore Airlines said the company was aware of the situation, which was in the hands of the lawyers who were "looking to resolve it".
I hope Mr. Rollings wins
