Thursday, October 15, 2009

Book with us, fly with them

An increasing number of commuters use the internet to search for and book flights. There are two primary options: either to search flights using the airline-specific websites, or use the online portals, such as expedia, that search across multiple airlines.

The trend in the past has been to use the airline specific web sites, such as Air Canada.com to search for and purchase tickets.  It appears that at least in Canada, the gap between airlines and web portals is narrowing .  The graph below presents the Internet traffic on Canadian versions of online portals and the two main airlines operating in Canada.

While Air Canada used to receive significantly more Internet traffic in the past, the trend as of April 2008 has been of declining traffic.  Expedia.ca and West Jet have experienced less of a decline in Internet traffic since April 2008 and have therefore become more competitive with Air Canada.

image

No comments:

Post a Comment