Despite signs that air travel bookings to several Asian destinations are rebounding, the sector still has to regain a lot of ground before recovering from SARS, industry professionals said yesterday.
"The skyward demand is triggered by bid discounts ? which is a short-term phenomenon," Tseng Sheng-hai (曾盛海), chairman of the Taipei Association of Travel Agents (TATA, 台北旅行公會) told the Taipei Times yesterday.
In actuality, the rebound only applies to specific routes and can not be used as a reference for the whole sector, he said
Last week travel agencies reportedly saw better-than-expected travel bookings to Thailand's Phuket Island and Bali, Indonesia after cutting tour package prices in half.
But most of those cheap seats -- a four-night package to Phuket at NT$11,900 and a four-night package to Bali at NT$12,300 on the nation's two major carriers, China Airlines Co (
"Our daily flights through the end of June to Bali are nearly fully booked," said Roger Han (
Inexpensive fares are the magnet to pull passengers back on flights.
"In an effort to counter the abnormal threat from SARS, it's necessary to employ an abnormal strategy," Han said.
As long as we can get passengers back on flights, the public's concerns over SARS will be eliminated, he said.
Demand on flights to Japan -- a popular outbound destination for Taiwanese -- is still sluggish.
"Japan-bound occupancy is still very low," said Lin Szu-chung (
Slow demand forced EVA to cut flight numbers to Japan from nearly 30 flights per week to less than 10 late last month.
Singapore Airlines Ltd, another Asian carrier hit hard by SARS, also reported it cut flight numbers in and out of Taiwan in half last month.
In a bid to lure customers back, Singapore Airlines jumped on the bandwagon to offer discounts of up to 70 percent.
Starting today the first 15,000 global customers that book flights to Singapore on Singapore Airlines will enjoy super cheap packages including airfare, hotel accommodations and free tickets to tourism destinations in Singapore.
United Airlines has also slashed prices on flights from Taipei to Los Angeles via Tokyo to NT$17,000 from nearly NT$40,000.
Market insiders said, with summer peak travel season approaching, most big promotions will finish in three weeks.
"We hope air tickets as well as package tour prices will return to normal levels [next month]" Tseng said.
Discounts of up to 10 percent below last summers prices will be still available next month, he added.
Han agreed, saying once public confidence in air-travel recovers, there will be no need for bargains.
"We expect by August ticket prices will rebound to the same level as summer last year," Han said.
Meanwhile, passenger numbers going through CKS International Airport rose to 6,126 arriving and 5,156 departing passengers on Sunday, according to a Central News Agency report.
That is still far below the daily average of 42,000 passengers going through the airport every day prior to the SARS outbreak.
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