$1 airfares: Virgin Blue
From AAP
28dec01
THE next volley in the aviation price war may send fares as low as $1, cut-price airline Virgin Blue said.
Virgin Blue today released an extra 2,500 $5 fares, after the first 10,000 on offer were snapped up by eager travellers.
The budget carrier announced $5 one-way fares from Melbourne to five capital cities on its website late Wednesday.
The deal was to run for three days, but interest in the super cheap fares was so intense the deal was sold out within 24 hours and Virgin's internet servers almost went into meltdown.
Virgin Blue chief executive officer Brett Godfrey said the company released extra $5 seats today and would release more tomorrow, bringing the total number of super special seats to 15,000.
Mr Godfrey yesterday promised Virgin would offer similar specials in other cities if the Melbourne $5 fare was a success.
Today he confirmed more specials would be offered and warned Qantas and the soon to be revamped Ansett that Virgin could go lower than $5 fares.
"We might do $1, who knows," Mr Godfrey told AAP.
"I think I'd be disappointed if I put it above $5 the next time. I'd like to probably bring it down."
Mr Godfrey ruled out paying people to fly Virgin.
"You don't need to," he said.
"Five dollars is next to nothing anyway and it's a great ad."
Mr Godfrey said Virgin Blue wasn't trying to buy the loyalty of the flying public with the $5 deal.
Qantas, meanwhile, said it had a very strong response to the summer seat deal it announced yesterday.
The airline yesterday released 2.5 million summer seats priced from as low as $66 one way for post-Christmas travel.
With the Fox-Lew takeover of Ansett scheduled for early February, Mr Godfrey said the revamped airline would not be a threat to Virgin Blue, especially as it would only have half the number of planes as the original.
"We're pretty profitable as it is anyway," he said.
"It would have to take quite a dent in our yields to hurt us anyway.
"I'm pretty confident about the next couple of years, otherwise we wouldn't be talking up the possibility of a float."
"I think we've found our niche and I believe Australians will continue to support us because we've supported them and the last thing we want to do is regress to a situation where we had two airlines again."