Henry Harteveldt Quotations

Yahoo is definitely on the right track. The move is very logical and very relevant.

There is categorically no consumer harm being done right now.

None of this is good news for any airline.

Online travel in 2004 will represent only about 15 percent of the industry's total revenue for the year. So there's huge upside to grow. The fierce competition now is about building the brand.

No airline benefits when you have a hurricane,

Group travel is very much a nascent part of online travel.

If any travel company is ignoring G2 or ITA, they do so at their own peril.

What Yahoo has and the travel agents don't have is user generated content. Travelers will change their behavior based on what they see from other consumers.

I would not rule out Boeing becoming partners with one of the winning bidders and getting in through the back door.

Travelers are on (the) leading edge of technology adoption. They adopt trends before the mainstream, are better educated and have more disposable income. They are picky people. Having control over making travel arrangements is very important, and the web plays well into that.

The question is, will these search engines present the information in a fair and unbiased way? Nobody works for free, and these (business plans) are based on an advertising model.

There is a big glaring hole here. The largest air travel market in the world is North America, ... It's not like people don't want to use it. The airlines are struggling to figure out the business model and the tradeoff. You add weight to the airplane. Will this and the product cost be paid off during a set time frame?

Trying to put two airlines together from an IT standpoint, there's no way around it--it's ugly, it's expensive, and it takes a long time.

This will cost revenue for airlines serving the whole region because people will now be spending whatever discretionary income they have on home repair, not travel.

The ROI for these projects is definitely a short one.

that they are only good as their last sale.

All airlines have been reexamining their IT strategies and expenditures and strategies. US Airways is certainly going to be watched with great interest.

This is a crowded and brutal market that makes the NHL look like the opera. It also lacks customer loyalty. Our research shows that only 4 in 10 consumers who use online travel sites say they routinely go to the same site.

They're really just marketing gimmicks. There's nothing wrong with them, but I don't think it's going to move the needle for you.

There is very little overlap but the biggest challenge would be rationalizing flights in and out of Cincinnati and Detroit. What Northwest really brings is immediate access to the Pacific Rim.

It looks like the airlines are going to get free rein to do whatever they want. Buying an airfare is confusing enough now. This could make it even more confusing.

It's incumbent on American to respond to this. It's possible that American will try to up the bidding for US Airways.

By allowing Delta to merge with Continental or Northwest, we would have three extremely large airlines accounting for 75 percent of market. But it would be harder for American and United to dominate Delta if Delta were to merge.

Buying an airfare is confusing enough now. This could make it even more confusing.

I can't believe Boeing is going to sit out.

Airlines are being very careful of anything they put on the airplane. It has to generate revenue, or it doesn't go on the plane.

The industry as a whole will have to embrace this. It will just take time.

The ease with this is that Delta doesn't have to buy Continental. There are no antitrust issues and a wider base of flights and destinations.