The recent
crisis of the Kingfisher Airlines and the frequency of cancellation of flights
have made the customers go away from it. Even if the seats are available, the
credibility of the airline is at such a nadir that the people are wary of
travelling on it. Now, the online travel portals that are already having a lot
of tickets stock of this troubled airline need to off-load these in some way.
With customers not even looking at the cheap air tickets from this airline, what is the best possible way of off-loading
the same? This is where the online travel companies make use of the opaque
fares method. It is called so because the travelers are told the name of the
airline only after they purchase a ticket.
But, how do
they get the customers to go for these tickets since the airline name is not
revealed before the ticket is bought? This is done by offering these tickets at
heavily discounted prices which help in luring the customers. For the
passengers this is a gamble worth risking since the flights can materialize for
that day and the customers can get to travel on domestic or international flights in a real cheap
way. However, this is an equal and a more probable chance that the flights may
not materialize since the airlines already has a history of cancellations.
Besides this
risk for the passengers, there is also a good chance that the other competing
airlines might not like this strategy since these are considered to be unfair
trade practices. The other airlines might also raise their voice against this
type of strategy which is non-transparent and can hurt the other airlines by
taking away customers from them. This could even be seen as a collusion of the
online travel agencies with a particular airline to offer cheap international flights.
Another
danger is that this method might even erode the reputation of the online travel
companies, since the customers may not like the idea of being offered cheap air tickets of an airline which
they do not like even if they are lured into it.
No comments:
Post a Comment