Sibir Cheaper by 400,000 Tickets
Sibir Airlines is offering air tickets at ultralow prices. The target is to sell 400,000 tickets worth 900 rubles to 1,400 rubles each by late March, step up aircraft loading and attract new passengers. But the failure to drive up passenger flow will mean the loss of around 10 percent of revenues for Sibir.
Sibir Airlines launched Monday a new program of selling the tickets at ultralow prices. The company offers 400,000 one-way tickets for the period of winter schedule, i.e. up to the end of March, at 900 rubles to 1,400 rubles. The tickets could be bought only through Internet at least 30 days prior to the flight. The offer extends to domestic flights exclusively.
According to Sibir Marketing Director Anton Yeremin, the purpose to attain is to step up commercial loading of the aircraft (which averages 75 percent to 78 percent today) and attract new passengers, who tend to avoid air trips. “We are acting in line with the world trends of networking carriers, which offer lower tariff rates if the tickets are bought a few months before the flight,” the top manager specified, adding the program is likely to become a permanent one.
Sibir can succeed in this undertaking, the analysts speculate. But the failure will mean hefty losses for the company. Sibir carried 4.2 million passengers past year, including 2.67 million within the country. So, 400,000 cheap tickets correspond to 14.97 percent of all tickets sold in 2005. On average, a domestic ticket costs $150 to $200, and should Sibir be unable to attract additional passengers under the new program, it would lose $48 million to $68 million in revenues, i.e. around 10 percent of the annual earnings.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 03, 2006
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