This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@xxxxxxxxx A Travel Expert Who Hates to Fly March 25, 2003 By JOE SHARKEY One thing you ought to know about Terry Trippler, the well-known expert on airline fares who is based at the Web site www.cheapseats.com, is that he really, really hates to fly. He practically has to be forced into the air on the two or three trips he typically takes a year, and then only if he can wrangle a first-class seat. So it was interesting yesterday afternoon to touch base with Mr. Trippler by phone and find him in a cab bound for a TV appearance in Santa Monica, Calif., from Los Angeles, where he had just arrived on a flight from Minneapolis. "We got to keep the economy going. We got to get on airplanes. We got to travel," he said. "I just flew out to L.A., and I wasn't afraid one bit. Nobody on the flight seemed nervous, either. Now, when I flew right after Sept. 11, people were nervous." He flew to Los Angeles, he said, on "a low-fare carrier with a first-class section, which is what it takes to get me into an airplane." Mr. Trippler, 56, who is also a familiar face as a consumer air-travel advocate on TV, clearly loves the airline business, even if he does not like boarding a plane. He works most days in an office converted from a two-bedroom apartment 20 floors below the family apartment in a downtown Minneapolis skyscraper, assisted by his wife, Lynn, his daughter, Kelly, and his son-in-law, Don. A former airline ticket agent, tour director and travel agent, he developed an interest in the dark mysteries of airline fares just as they were becoming ever more complex in the early 1980's. Now, he commands a couple of computers in his office, with the goal of keeping track of the endless onslaught of fare and rules changes pumped out daily by major airlines to match the competition. In an earlier interview, he suggested that he regarded his counterparts in the warrens of airline fare departments with a spy-versus-spy fascination. "It would be interesting to know how many air fares are proactively put in and how many are just reactive," he said, clearly suggesting that the latter would be the case. Three times a day, he said, the airlines are putting new fares into the system, which distributes them to the computerized booking systems used by travel agents. How many fares? "On average," he said, "there are about 200,000 changes a day." The economic problems domestic airlines face - with $18 billion in losses the last two years and another $10 billion or more expected this year - are mostly attributable to high cost and low revenue. But part of the lowering of revenue is a consequence of a wholesale shift in the buying behavior of business travelers. Three years ago, business travelers kept airlines prosperous by generally buying the top walk-up fares at rates five times, or more, higher than discount leisure fares. That gravy train slowed when the economy soured two years ago and almost screeched to a halt after the terrorist attacks. And part of the reason for that shift in buying behavior was that Internet virtuosos like Mr. Trippler put out the word that a bit of shopping could yield huge discounts. Still, he says, the basic marketing problem is that in their crazed rush to match one another's fares on competitive routes, while low-fare, low-cost competitors gobbled up customers, the airlines forgot that they were selling what should be a distinct product. "We have six major airlines that have grown into this situation where they obviously have no faith in their product at all," Mr. Trippler said. "They are so focused on the day-to-day revenue, micromanaging fares and matching each other's moves every minute that they can't look beyond that," he said. "They've got themselves in such a revenue bind now that they can't afford even a day or two days of being in what they consider a noncompetitive position." Nor, he said, are the major airlines willing even at this stage to consider abandoning their hopelessly complicated fare structures for a system - similar to that of the low-fare carriers - that would price business fares "rationally" once robust air travel resumes. On a more practical level, since he is a consultant on cheap fares, he suggests that this is the time to book some. "Fares are lower now than in memory. It's a great time to be buying tickets," he said. Meanwhile, Mr. Trippler will be back at his computer monitors tomorrow. "You keep at it, but they're fast, and they're good," he said of his nemeses in the airline fare rooms. "You realize that even after 35 years at it, you never really figure it out." On the Road appears each Tuesday. E-mail: jsharkey@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/25/business/25ROAD.html?ex=1049601335&ei=1&en=251c79e34c637eb5 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@xxxxxxxxxxx or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@xxxxxxxxxxxx Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company