Discount airfare web site

Midwest Express teams with Web site to offer discount fares

Off-peak, discount trips to New York will earn travelers 15% off airfare

By RICK BARRETT rbarrett@journalsentinel.com, Journal Sentinel

Friday, November 22, 2002

Midwest Express Airlines has signed an agreement with a discount travel agency, OffPeakTraveler.com, to offer fliers reduced-rate packages to New York City.

Under the agreement announced Thursday, travelers who purchase package trips to New York will receive 15% off Midwest Express airfares. It is the first such deal between Midwest and OffPeakTraveler.com, which is operated over the Internet from New York and Milwaukee.

The agreement is notable for Midwest, which relies more on premium service than discount prices to attract customers. But business travel has been depressed for more than a year, and that has put pressure on the airline to find alternative sources of revenue.

Midwest already has agreements with travel discounters such as Orbitz and Travelocity. The agreement with OffPeakTraveler.com goes one step further toward filling airplane seats that otherwise might go empty.

"This is a test to see if it works," said Thomas Vick, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Oak Creek-based Midwest Express. "The idea is to reach an audience that normally does not fly Midwest Express."

OffPeakTraveler.com has its main office in New York, but co- founder Jay Sorensen works from his home in Shorewood. The company was started in August to offer packaged vacations in off-peak seasons, such as to New York and London in the winter and to Phoenix in the summer.

Sorensen is a former Midwest Express marketing director who left the company in 1996 and has since worked as an independent travel consultant.

OffPeakTraveler.com customers can buy a three-night New York package starting for $179 per person, which includes hotel accommodations, a 2-hour cruise around the Statue of Liberty and admission to the New York City Fire Museum.

The package is valid Jan. 2 through Feb. 28. Its price does not include airfare, but travelers who purchase the package can get 15% off the lowest Midwest Express fare to New York.

For OffPeakTraveler.com, the discounted airfare is an additional sales tool. "Anyone can sell a trip to New York in June," Sorensen said. "But the trick is to sell that trip in January, when New York can be cold and slush-filled."

Leisure travel has grown as a result of discounted fares, and about 20% of all airline tickets are now booked through the Internet - - often through discount agencies such as Travelocity, Orbitz and OffPeakTraveler.com.

Midwest Express will not get into a price war with discount airlines such as Jet Blue, but the company wants a strong presence on the Internet and in markets where people are looking for special deals, Vick said.

"For us, it is a way to broaden our exposure," he said.

OffPeakTraveler.com makes money by purchasing blocks of hotel rooms and travel services in off-season destinations and selling them over the Internet. Sorensen and a partner from New York, Rodney Ezrapour, already have received national media attention for cheap airfares and hotel stays in Europe.

Since off-season travel is cheaper and there are fewer crowds, the traveling public is interested in trips to places like New York in the winter, said Edward Hasbrouck, San Francisco author of "The Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World."

But the question is whether a small start-up business such as OffPeakTraveler.com will be able to find its audience in a marketplace that already has big discounters such as Travelocity and Orbitz, Hasbrouck said.

"It is like going into competition with the thousand-pound gorillas," he said.

Airlines benefit from the travel discounters but in some cases are pulling back from the race to offer the cheapest airfares. "There is a clear sense among the airlines that the current low prices are not sustainable," Hasbrouck said.

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