The Ineluctable Middlemen; The Travel Business  

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[s.n]

Jenis: Article from Bulletin/Magazine
Dalam koleksi: The Economist (http://search.proquest.com/) vol. 404 no. 8799 (Aug. 2012), page 50-52.
Topik: Profit Margins; Airlines; Travel Agencies; Deregulation; Profitability; International

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Perpustakaan Pusat (Semanggi) Nomor Panggil: EE29.73 Non-tandon: 1 (dapat dipinjam: 0) Tandon: tidak ada

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Airlines are wonderful generators of profit--for everyone except themselves. Even in good times their margins are as thin as a boarding pass, and in recent years they have more often lost money. Averaged over the past four decades, the net profit margin of the world's airlines, taken together, has been a measly 0.1%. By contrast, other bits of the travel business that depend on the airlines--such as aircraft-makers, travel agents, airports, caterers and maintenance firms--have done very nicely. Some of the tastiest margins in the travel business are enjoyed by the "global distribution systems" (GDS), a fancy name for computerised-reservations services. These were originally created by several of the largest airlines to distribute their flights through travel agencies but have since become independent firms. The airlines' chronic unprofitability is partly the result of a wave of competition--especially from new low-cost carriers--unleashed by the steady deregulation of aviation since the 1970s. But it is also due to two moves by the airlines, from the 1990s onwards, that in retrospect were strategic errors. One was to stop paying direct commissions to travel agents. The other was to set the reservation systems free to become (as the airlines see it) profit-gobbling monsters that devour their parents.

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