Fri "Melbourne Age"
Melburnians tempted by cheap air tickets
By CAROL NADER
Friday 28 December 2001
On another grey December day, a one-way ticket out of Melbourne proved a tempting offer yesterday.
Not that the weather need have had much influence after Virgin Airlines released 10,000 one-way tickets from Melbourne for $5. The unprecedented deal generated frustration among those who logged on to the Internet early, determined not to miss out.
Phone lines at Virgin's head office in Queensland were jammed at 9.30am, Internet delays of more than three hours were reported in the afternoon and by 7pm, more than 7000 tickets had sold. Virgin head of commercial operations David Huttner predicted all 10,000 would be sold by noon today.
The $5 tickets, to Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Launceston and Canberra, are available only to those departing from Melbourne on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday between January 9 and March 27. The offer ends on Monday and is exclusive to Internet bookings.
Ironically, travellers will outlay more on fees than they will for the fare itself, with taxes and levies taking the cost of the ticket to $20.
The cost of a return ticket starts at $69.
Mr Huttner said the initiative was aimed at encouraging people to travel by air, after the downturn since September 11 and the grounding of Ansett.
"We're saying to people now, `It's so easy to fly. There's not a shortage like there was a few months ago. Go on, get on a plane'."
Qantas and Ansett's administrator yesterday said they had no intention of matching the $5 fare because it was not commercially viable. But both responded immediately by introducing new one-way Internet-purchase low fares between major capital cities starting at $66.
The executive general manager of sales and marketing at Qantas, John Borghetti, confirmed that the carrier had revised its best fare down from $77 for 2.5 million seats announced on Boxing Day.