MINNEAPOLIS -- Northwest launched an on-line discount club April 17
that offers exclusive deals priced even lower than the fare
specials it makes available to every Internet user.
Consumers will have to pay a $35 annual membership fee to join
nwa.com Club
($20 if they joined by April 21), but Northwest said it received
thousands of responses within 24 hours. A spokesman would not say
how many of them signed up. Nor would he say how much deeper the
fare discounts will be, other than they will be "enough to make
people glad that they joined."
Other special deals offered by the club involve vacation
packages, frequent flyer miles and even Internet access.
In making the move, which appears to be a first for the
industry, the airline is taking another experimental step into
on-line distribution and into offering customers lower fares that
travel agents cannot access.
ARTA president John Hawks, however, said his organization is far
from upset.
"We are kind of laughing about it," Hawks said. "We are not at
all concerned. We just don't think consumers are going to embrace
paying to be part of a club."
Hawks said the club might attract business travelers in
Northwest's hub cities that find the prospect of lower fares
appealing. But "we don't think that's the core consumers our
members are going after," and this doesn't offer the broad-based
Internet specials that have so upset agents in the past, he
said.
Hawks said ARTA might be more concerned if American or Delta
started a similar club because those airlines have a better image
among consumers. Consumers won't be drawn in by the lure of special
deals from "a carrier that left them on a plane in a snowstorm," he
said.
ASTA was a bit more concerned, but not by much. "It sounds like
a variation of a frequent flyer program to me," said Paul Ruden,
ASTA staff vice president of industry affairs.
"It is just a gimmick to create passenger loyalty, which
apparently they are unsuccessful creating in other ways."