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To: Dave Gore who wrote (20538)	12/28/1998 11:43:00 AM
From: James H. Irwin	Respond to of 120523

That should only embolden your attitudes towards online travel...as the airlines slowly put a choke hold on the mom & pops on the street...some are even charging a surcharge for non-business travel because of the costs structure...hence more and more people are going to go online.... Example...and for disclosure I bought IFLY this am...and now currently hold 8000 shares...I am an investor of an internet travel agency entitled JetNet...www.jetnet.com...what distinguishes us is we rebate 50% of the travel agent's commission back to the individual who booked and we have many customers who book others travel...in effect making them a travel agent...nicely profitable...and our site grows everyday. So with the market forecasts out there prognosticating 8+ billion by 2002 or 2003, the trend is up...by the time you do your full due diligence...these companies will be even higher...as always...bonne chance.

To: Dave Gore who wrote (20538)	12/28/1998 10:56:00 PM
From: M.R. Davis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 120523

Well firstly.... I hope you took a position early on today with IFLY (or IFLYW)! Secondly, I have heard elements of this discussion. However we need to understand the three main arenas for distribution: direct from airlines, travel agents and via computer from the Internet. While airlines are trying to shift more business towards themselves I don't believe we are going to see the travel agent distribution cut out of the picture - but yes profits are squeezed and incentives are there to go direct to the airlines. This will shift the travel agency business in favor of the larger outfits who have more economies of scale and especially those, like IFLY, that have setup override commission structures that allow for higher commission rates once certain volume levels are reached. (IFLY's are only just kicking in now - and they will see increased profits as higher commission rates kick in with more volume). What the airlines do not want is to have Internet computer based price wars - with little agent bots checking out everyone else's prices. They make money off the huge variation in ticket prices and do not intend to make price comparisons totally transparent. So they have axed Internet ticket commissions giving them a maximum cap of $10. Hence Preview Travel and Expedia have complained to the government that they can't make money and are being unfairly penalised. But the airlines are not going to let the Internet eat into their profit margins if they can help it. The beauty of IFLY is they use the Internet as the communication medium and meeting place but they have not handed the customer service over to the computer. They have kept the human element of the travel agent involved. This allows them to reap full travel agent commissions (capped at $100 instead of $10 for the Internet) and to reap the many benefits of the Internet: instant worldwide presence, faster data processing and faster transaction times to name a few.