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TheBuzz

BY ERIKA ENGLE

Tuesday, June 5, 2001

Air-fare wars heating
up in cyberspace

ORBITZ.COM jumped into the competitive waters of online travel booking yesterday as the U.S. Department of Justice continued a review of antitrust concerns.

Those concerns have been raised by players in the travel and leisure industry because Orbitz is owned by travel suppliers -- namely, by American, Continental, Delta, Northwest and United airlines.

At the same time, Hawaii-based competitor Cheap Tickets Inc. issued a statement boasting it had received the "highest overall customer rating" of online travel agencies according to BizRate.com, an independent monitoring company which surveys customers of e-commerce sites.

While Cheap Tickets was paying close attention to the new kid in town, it was ignored in a CNBC report on Orbitz's launch.

CNBC described Orbitz's main competitors as Travelocity.com and Expedia.com, leaving out Cheap Tickets.

Washington-based Expedia Inc., Texas-based Travelocity .com Inc., Hawaii-based Cheap Tickets and Orbitz's airline parents are publicly traded. Travelocity is owned by Texas-based Sabre Inc., which bills itself as the largest distributor of travel in the world.

The online services tout low fares as their main benefit, but just as many weight-loss programs warn, "results may vary."

A Star-Bulletin comparison for a June 11-18 trip from Honolulu to Las Vegas, departing in the morning and returning in the afternoon, with a maximum of one stop, found that Travelocity beat Orbitz by 35 cents, with a price of $801.65. Orbitz's price was an even $802, while Cheap Tickets quoted $982.02 and Expedia, $1,076.

Man does not travel by low-cost airfare alone, however -- each online provider offers other services such as hotel room and car packages.

Meanwhile, be watching for Travelocity to use Hawaii as part of a branding campaign announced May 31.

It is to include a 30-second television commercial called, "Haleakala," which features a couple bicycling on Maui, "exploring the only volcano that people can bike from top to bottom," according to the company Web site.

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Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com