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AIRLINE TICKET PURCHASES

In many ways, the Internet has empowered the consumer. Not only can we buy products that we had never had even heard of before a few years ago, but we also have a much greater freedom to choose where we buy from, and what we pay for it. This is especially true for airline ticket purchases. Before the Internet, if you wanted to purchase cheap tickets, you would have to spend literally hours on the phone with all of the airlines. There was no convenient, quick way to find out which ones offered the cheapest fares. It might take you half an hour to find out the prices of US Airways airline tickets, and another hour to find the prices of America West airlines. By the time you finished, the prices could have changed again. It really was a nightmare to make cheap travel plans.

Websites like Travelocity and kayak.com actually allow you to compare the rates for the different airlines before choosing which one you want to fly with. This means that you can get all of your information in one go. Then, you can make your airline ticket purchases through the same website that told you the rates! There has never been an easier way to make an airlines ticket purchase, and there may never be one.

All of this drives down the price of an airline ticket purchase. It used to be much harder to get good information about airline ticket purchases. People would often make their decisions based on an airline's reputation, its advertisements, and the availability of its flights. Nowadays, however, almost everyone makes their airline ticket purchases on the Internet. Although airline reputation still counts for something ( I know several people who will not fly Northwest Airlines, no matter how cheap the flight is) price is the bottom line. All the airlines are forced to compete head-to-head with each other over providing the cheapest flights.

This is great for the consumer, but it is bad for the major airlines. It is no wonder that so many of them are going under. The smaller ones, which can afford to do business more efficiently, survive under this system. Personally, I think it is a good thing. Before airline ticket purchases online, the regional Airport that I use most – DTW – was completely dominated by Northwest Airlines in spite of the awful service that it had. Nowadays, however, more and more of the flights into Detroit Metropolitan airport are from other carriers.