Nickname: el bow greese

Review: Hey Jesse...you must not fly too frequently. Most elite passengers on mileage programs have direct access to live humans they can call to upgrade, ticket, etc... who the hell wants to deal with a web site--even a well designed one. i want a helpful human on the end of the phone that i can chat with, confirm with, and generally feel serviced by. so you don't think airlines could offer comparison/competitive pricing services? well why not? mid-week, soon-to-leave, low-passenger-count flights could certainly be offered as heavily discounted alternatives to a certain category of flyers. this might help to fill the planes. at the end of the day though, the business travelers are the ones that bring in the $$$, and these are the ones who get the kingly services.

Date reviewed: Mar 3, 2006 12:22 AM

Nickname: skeptic

Review: possibly, but to what extent is the travel website business part of their core? what if the better business case is actually to disentangle themselves from the costs of travel agency support, and focus on the experience of the flight.

Date reviewed: Mar 2, 2006 7:40 PM

Nickname: SWABoy

Review: Southwest airlines is a major carries that bucks the trend laid out in your article. It doesn't sell its services on any third-party booking sites. Over 70% of their sales comes from their public website Southwest.com. Their site competes very nicely to the third party websites.

Date reviewed: Mar 2, 2006 5:45 PM