=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SF Gate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/news/archive/2002/03/15/f= inancial1031EST0071.DTL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, March 15, 2002 (AP) Airlines now offer `last minute' fare bargains weeks before flights KORTNEY STRINGER, The Wall Street Journal (03-15) 07:31 PST (AP) -- Many last-minute airfare deals aren't even close to last minute anymore. To dispose of unsold seats on certain weekend flights, airlines for several years have offered them on their Web sites at deep discounts -- generally 40 percent to 70 percent -- on the preceding Wednesday. But the recent travel slump has changed everything. Quietly, carriers are lengthening the interval between the discount offer and the flight to weeks, and even months. This week, US Airways Group offered a "last minute" sale that requires tickets be purchased by this coming Monday for travel through Aug. 3, with a round-trip fare from Providence, R.I., to New Orleans as low as $198. Delta Air Lines offered last-minute purchases for trips through June, wi= th round-trip fares starting at $178 for a flight to Dallas from Richmond, Va.; tickets must be purchased by next Wednesday. And AMR Corp.'s American Airlines this week began a Web-only fare sale on international round-trip tickets starting at $189 to Mexico. American's sale requires tickets be purchased by March 22 for travel through June. "We do what we think makes good sense," says American spokesman Al Becke= r. "We think that for right now, this is an appropriate step for us to take." Many people have no idea such a step has been taken. "Some savvy travele= rs have noticed it, but airlines don't talk about it," says Michael Sands, chief marketing officer of travel Web site Orbitz LLC, which is owned by the largest United States. carriers and lists last-minute deals. "It's one of the best-kept secrets in the industry." The broader definition of last minute is an attempt by airlines not only to fill empty seats but to steer travelers away from competitors such as Priceline.com Inc. and Travelocity.com Inc. to the carriers' own Web sites. Although travel is rebounding since a sharp drop after Sept. 11, passenger traffic still was down 10.7 percent in February from a year earlier, according to the Air Transport Association, reflecting the slow economy as much as security fears. And this week, the Federal Aviation Administration said in its annual Commercial Aviation Forecast that it doesn't expect passenger traffic to return to more normal levels until fiscal 2004. Airlines still offer many last-minute deals exclusively for spur-of-the-moment weekend travel as a last-ditch effort to squeeze revenue from unsold seats. But by expanding the time window for travel, yet still limiting the time frame by which tickets must be purchased to only a few days, airlines have found they can attract more spontaneous leisure travelers without losing valuable revenue from business travelers. "You want to cater to (travelers) who might say, `Hey, I can watch a Blockbuster video or I can learn to windsurf off the coast of Mexico this weekend,"' says Michelle Peluso, chief executive of Site59.com Inc., a last-minute travel concern named for the 59th minute in an hour. But airlines "are very careful not to get the business traveler who's willing to pay $1,500 for a business trip to San Francisco," Ms. Peluso says. "They know he's not likely to buy a ticket within three days for a business meeting next month." Last-minute fares typically draw footloose singles, procrastinators and impulse travelers who go for a getaway if the price is right -- particularly if they know the deal is fleeting. They often find out about the bargains by surfing airlines' Web sites or signing up for e-mail alerts from carriers. Matt Baum, a resident of Brookline, Mass., checks his e-mail weekly for last-minute cheap seats. He says he takes about six spontaneous trips a year to cities such as Baltimore and Atlanta for under $200. This week, he was looking further into the future, searching Web fares for a planned weekend excursion with his girlfriend to San Francisco in August. To his surprise, he came across a $200 round-trip ticket from Boston's Logan Airport. "That's a really good deal," says Mr. Baum, who is 27 years old and a senior associate at Independence Investment in Boston. He says he paid $400 for his last flight to San Francisco. To take advantage of the cheap fare, he will have to book a flight next week that he won't take for an additional five months. "I was waiting (to book) until we figured out what days we'd like to go, but looks like I'll probably pull the trigger soon." Industry experts say last-minute deals to vacation spots such as Orlando, Fla., and Miami are scarce right now, but last-minute bargains are plentiful to Boston, Chicago, Dallas, New York, San Francisco and Seattle. Airlines "look at the routes that aren't selling and they discount them," says Josh Roberts, editorial product manager for Smart Living Inc., which through smartliving.com provides a service that sorts through special deals of some major airlines and sends them out weekly in a single electronic newsletter. Airlines "aren't necessarily making a profit on last-minute sales," Mr. Roberts says, but "they figure getting something is better than nothing." =20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2002 AP