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-------------------------------------------------------------- This story was printed from ZDNet Australia. --------------------------------------------------------------
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Local e-discounts in for long haul By Byron Kaye, ZDNet Australia September 24, 2001 URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/business/soa/Local-e-discounts-in-for-long-haul/0,139023166,120260641,00.htm
Discount airline tickets may soon disappear from Australian Web sites, but not for long, predicts e-tail industry analyst Adir Shiffman. The overnight demise of Ansett, coupled with recent terrorist attacks on the US, have spelt double doom for Australia's aviation industry. Cheap tickets offered over the Internet have dried up in the US virtually overnight, as that country's airlines struggle to meet costs in the face of economic recession. Locally, Qantas has advised customers that discount tickets sold online are limited while the airline shifts its focus to salvaging the travel plans of thousands of Ansett passengers. And aviation industry spectators have anticipated higher airline ticket prices in Australia through diminished competition. But Shiffman, the founding director of e-tail research firm Global Reviews, said he expected discounted online airfares to return to Australia within six months. -It's a temporary move," he said. He said the proportion of standard fare tickets sold online would continue to grow, even as the industry struggled, because passengers considered the Internet the most convenient mode of purchasing airline tickets. He said airlines were initially tentative to push ticket sales over the Web, but were starting to use Internet sales as a -defensive strategy" due to low overheads incurred by Internet sales. He expects almost all airline ticket sales will be conducted over the Web within five years.
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