Australian discount domestic passenger carrier Impulse Airlines has relaunched its Web site as the airline pricewar continues online.
The domestic operator told ZDNet it wanted to change its brand from Impulse Airlines to Impulse.com.au, an address previously owned by an Adelaide company.
The airline has been known as Impulse Airlines for eight years, in which time it operated as a regional carrier of freight for the John Fairfax newspaper group.
The carrier launched its domestic passenger service in May 2000, together with a strong online marketing strategy to encourage customers to purchase tickets online.
"We noticed we had a link from www.impulse.com.au. Over the last few months there have been a lot of referrals from the site, to the extent that we felt comfortable changing," Impulse Airlines Marketing Manager Adrien Baker said.
Baker says the 'Impulse' domain name was owned by a small Adelaide company, which wasn't using it for commercial reasons.
The airline says it did not have to purchase the domain name from the company, suggesting that there was some agreement to hand over the .com.au address.
Impulse derives most of its ticket sales through its online service, some days receiving up to 80 percent of sales from the Web site.
"We encourage customers to purchase online with cheaper fares only available through the site, this drives a lot of people to the Net,
"There's a big operational advantage to utilising the Net, we don't have as many [employee] costs and are open 24 hours a day," he said.
Baker claims the site receives on average 20,000 visitors per day.
