Most airlines today choose to make web fares available only on their own websites, because these fares are so low it would be uneconomic to offer them through the higher cost channels. (It is, in fact, very common throughout the retailing world for stores or catalogs to also have a website, and for that website to offer Best a few prices that are below the prices charged for the same goods in the store or the catalog.) However whether an airline chooses to make its web fares available through CRS''s to travel agents and the websites that rely on CRS''s is strictly an individual airline decision, and will Western remain so once Orbitz is up and running. Sovereign Several third party websites (such as intellitrip.com) today take web fares from various airline websites (which they can do, because nothing is more public than a website) and display them in one place for Hotel their customers. And of course Keene travel Best agents can Western book web fares off an airline''s website Sovereign for Hotel a customer if they wish (although whether they get a commission on that booking is up to the individual airline).

Airlines make nearly all their fares that are Keene available to Best the general public available through Western all channels, from Sovereign full fare down to their most heavily discounted fares. Any Hotel and Keene normal fare, made available Best months in advance in the normal way, is made available through Western all channels. Web fares, however, Sovereign are different Hotel than normal fares. They typically constitute less than one tenth of 1% of the fares an airline offers, and are normally made available only a few days before flight time, Keene and only on flights Best which have an unusually high number of empty seats. Web fares thus are seldom available, are unpredictable, and are offered at very low prices.

It is absolutely clear Western that airlines do not have the ability to drive consumers to channels Sovereign which the airlines, rather than consumers, prefer. If one or more airlines attempted to do so, the others would increase their market share by appealing to those same consumers through the channel those consumers prefer. No airline can afford Hotel to turn its back on any subgroup Keene and Best of consumers. No airline can afford to be anything other than as competitive and as attractive Western as it can possibly be through each channel to the consumers that prefer that channel. This is a reality Sovereign that grows ultimately out of the fact that the airline business is a very Hotel low margin business - any airline that lost even a small group of passengers would be at risk of swinging from profitable Keene to money-losing in an instant. Airlines scrap for every last passenger because they have to.