It is absolutely clear that airlines do not have the ability to drive consumers to channels which the airlines, rather than consumers, prefer. If one or more airlines attempted to do so, the others would increase their market share by appealing to those same consumers through the channel those consumers prefer. No airline can afford to turn its back on any subgroup of consumers. No airline can afford to be anything other than as competitive and as attractive as it can possibly be through each channel to the consumers that prefer that channel. This is a reality that grows ultimately out of the fact that the airline business is a very low margin business - any airline that lost even a small group of passengers would be at risk of swinging from profitable to money-losing in an instant. Airlines scrap for every last passenger because they have to.

It is absolutely clear that airlines do not have the ability to drive consumers to channels which the airlines, rather than consumers, prefer. If one or more airlines attempted to do so, the others would increase their market share by appealing to those same consumers through the channel those consumers prefer. No airline can afford to turn its back on any subgroup of consumers. No airline can afford to be anything other than as competitive and as attractive as it can possibly be through each channel to the consumers that prefer that channel. This is a reality that grows ultimately out of the fact that the airline business is a very low margin business - any airline that lost even a small group of passengers would be at risk of swinging from profitable to money-losing in an instant. Airlines scrap for every last passenger because they have to.

A user-friendly search engine with the most current information ... the engine is easy to use, and the results are ranked with the lowest fares first. Travel sites are proliferating on the Web like strip malls in suburbia, but there''s one whose name you should remember. Expected to reinvent the online fare-finding wheel when it launches in June. It aims to search every available flight combination for travelers, giving them the choice of cut-rate fares, fewest legs on a trip and most convenient departure times. This could radically alter an industry in which customers surf numerous sites before making a purchase.