THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 4, 1996 TAG: 9601040299
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
A winter air-fare war has dramatically cut the cost of flying from Hampton Roads. But some travel agents said Wednesday that customers aren't exactly flocking to take advantage of the lower fares.
``The public is so used to sales every couple of months that they don't get that excited anymore,'' said Patty Cooke, owner of Cooke's Travel Service in Chesapeake. She estimated flight bookings for her agency this week are running about 10 percent ahead of the same week last year - but still well below peak travel periods like summer or Christmastime.
Cherrie Totone, co-owner of Class-A-Travel in Virginia Beach, said her agency's international flight bookings are up from a year ago - but domestic air-travel bookings are about the same.
She said many travelers are hesitant to pounce on the discounted fares because the reductions are less than they appear. After a year of steadily increasing fares, she contended the new discounted fares are in many cases actually higher than the lowest rates of a year ago.
Delta Air Lines kicked off the latest wave of fare-cutting Dec. 27. It announced it would cut as much as 50 percent off the price of tickets bought by Jan. 10 for travel in the United States, Canada and Mexico through Feb. 29. Other airlines quickly matched the offer and extended the discounts to overseas travel as well.
On top of that, most carriers this week tossed in another discount by announcing that they would stop collecting a 10 percent federal tax on domestic flights and a $6 departure tax for international flights. The taxes expired Monday because of the federal budget impasse.
The result is that tickets for travel to popular winter destinations in Florida and California now cost as much as 60 percent less than they did just two weeks ago.
Mary Ellen Carron, manager of the travel-agency department for the American Automobile Association's Norfolk office, said lowest round-trip fares between Norfolk and Los Angeles fell from $707 to $353. Norfolk-New York round trips sank as low as $108 from $220, and Norfolk-Boston round trips dipped as low as $123 from $250.
AAA's air bookings have surged, Carron said.
``For the last couple of days it's been nonstop,'' she said. ``We've probably got 30 phone messages backed up - people we need to call back.''
The expired passenger taxes have created a lot of confusion. Passengers who purchased their tickets last year for flights in 1996 may be entitled to tax refunds if Congress doesn't reinstate the tax retroactive to Monday.
United Airlines said Wednesday that it will automatically credit its passengers who are eligible for the refund if they purchased their tickets by credit card. It set up a mail-in refund-claim procedure for passengers who paid by check, cash or other means.
Travel agents said some other airlines were referring to the Internal Revenue Service customers who believe they may be owed tax refunds. by CNB