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E L L I O T T' S TRAVEL NOTES
Travel news, opinion and analysis

April 19, 2004

Start-Up Travel Sites Take Off
Online travel is taking off - again - and a new generation of travel Web sites is jostling for a seat. Upstart companies like Qixo, SideStep and Mobissimo are developing more sophisticated search engines for the travel space, hoping to cut into the online dominance of Travelocity, Expedia and Orbitz.com. Venture capital is once again flowing into Internet start-ups - and with Credit Suisse First Boston forecasting $71 billion in online travel spending by 2006, would-be Web moguls are salivating over the sector. "You've got a big carrot out there, and big customer pain," explained Mike Sigal, head of sales and marketing for Mobissimo. Mobissimo, which is in a public testing phase and planning a launch by June, works on a paid referral business, trawling online agencies like Expedia as well as the sites for individual airlines like JetBlue and then taking a referral fees for customer click-throughs. New York Post | Posted 7 a.m.
-- See beta version of Mobissimo
-- Eagle: Reverse auctions are hot online travel trend

• Hype alert. I would hardly call Qixo and SideStep "startups," and Mobissimo has been in beta since last fall. But the story makes a good point: Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity may not have online travel customers to themselves indefinitely. Send us your comments.

Political Correctness in the Skies
Imagine if on 9/11, as American Airlines Flight 11 were boarding at Logan Airport in Boston, airline security believed there to be something suspicious about passengers: Satam M.A. al-Suqami, Waleed M. Alshehri, Wail M. Alshehri, Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari (the five hijackers). Amazingly, airport security could have interviewed only two of them, because to exceed that number would have subjected the airline to a penalty. Yes, political correctness jeopardized the safety or our skies. That is the most stunning development to come so far from the 9/11 Commission hearings, and much has happened since I reported that a week ago today. Philly.com | Posted 7:10 a.m.

Hopes for Airline Recovery Fading
This was going to be the year the airline industry finally climbed out of the financial pit where it's flailed since 2001. But that's unlikely to happen because of record-high oil prices and the relentless march of low-fare airlines, led by Southwest's invasion of Philadelphia next month. "Hopes for a meaningful U.S. airline financial recovery are fading fast," analyst Samuel Buttrick of UBS Securities in New York warned investors in a recent report. Instead of being $500 million in debt this year, as analysts forecast a few months ago, the industry will lose about $2.3 billion, a number that looks good only compared with the $5.4 billion it lost last year, Buttrick said. The airlines' jet-fuel costs have risen by more than 40 percent in the last year. Philadelphia Inquirer | Posted 7:25 a.m.
-- Star-Telegram: Fuel price increases are 'catastrophic'

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• And finally ... speaking of start-up travel Web sites, I'm working on one of my own at the moment. More on that in a few days. And by the way, don't forget to take a look at Aren's blog for the latest pictures from our Alaska trip. Posted 7:30 a.m. | Send us your comments.

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