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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cosmicforce who wrote (29374)	9/25/2001 11:05:09 PM
From: Michael M	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Cosmic - As a business person, I fully understand value and perceptions of same. The airlines long ago threw most of their eggs into the "perception" basket and ignored "value" by conditioning part of their market to expect pricing that did not pay for the gas. The other part of their market was literally held hostage by onerous terms and conditions that drove the expense of flying to an unacceptable level. They will need more money from somewhere unless they toss the business plan. My wife's business is in fine shape. There are numerous ways of coping with airline business practices and we have relied on them increasingly since 1995. I would like to substitute a fact for one of your perceptions. While universal truth is hard to spot, I can tell you that over 70 percent of air tickets are sold by travel agents. Pretty good customer base, IMO. I will concede that people like yourself and others here, who spend a lot of personal time on the computer, are not a fertile group of potential clients. In closing, a personal travel news summary. Renaissance Cruises shut down this afternoon and announced they will file Chapter 11. American Airlines announced it is closing 107 of its City Ticket Offices, leaving open only two in NYC, one in NJ, one in Tulsa and, of course, Dallas. I may have forgotten one. They expect ticketing to move to the internet, phones and ticket counters (the release did not mention TAs). I was told yesterday, even with really slow traffic, lines at the counter at Dulles were horrific. My brother and brother-in-law report their planes seem almost empty. International fares are unbelievably cheap for this time of year. If you have an itch, this is the time to scratch it (on-line of course).