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.

Most airlines today choose to make web fares available only on their own websites, because these fares are so low it would be uneconomic to offer them through the higher cost channels. (It is, in fact, very common throughout the retailing world for stores or catalogs to also have a website, and for that website to offer a few prices that are below the prices charged for the same goods in the store or the catalog.) However whether an airline chooses to make its web fares available through CRS''s to travel agents and the websites that rely on CRS''s is strictly an individual airline decision, and will remain so once Orbitz is up and running. Several third party websites (such as intellitrip.com) today take web fares from various airline websites (which they can do, because nothing is more public than a website) and display them in one place for their customers. And of course travel agents can book web fares off an airline''s website for a customer if they wish (although whether they get a commission on that booking is up to the individual airline).

What does this site have that other online travel sites don''t? Actually, it''s not what the site has, but rather what it does. The heart and soul is actually a fare search engine with state-of-the-art technology to find and book fares. And consistently displayed more fares from more airlines than its competitors. It''s apparent that the consumer will have a new and improved way to book online travel that not only shows more choices but also steps up the competition for the rest of the online travel booking services to improve their product a definite win-win for travelers. Backed by a $50 million investment and boasting powerful technology that helps do-it-yourself travelers find and sort airfares more quickly than anything else on the market, we generated plenty of buzz from the moment the then-unnamed concept was announced in November 1999.

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