United's flight of fantasy

washington: a lottery craze swept across much of america last night with thousands of people lining up to buy tickets for a $ 200 million powerball prize. there were no winners and the pot therefore becomes bigger but some 120 indians ran into a different kind of bonanza. united airlines, which is starting a direct non-stop polar flight between chicago and new delhi from october 27, erroneously offered fares as low as $ 120 to $ 200 (rs 5,500 rs 9,000) on its website.scores of indians snagged tickets at the throwaway price before united realised its blooper and pulled down the offer. the fare should have been between $1200 -- $2000. but once airlines make such offers, they are bound to honour it. the president of united, which is the worlds largest airline, is iit-ian rono dutta. such gaffes are uncommon but not unheard of. some years back, delta airlines mistakenly offered us-india tickets for $400, when it meant as a us-israel fare. united itself sold san francisco-to-paris tickets for $24.98 in january, when it probably should have been $249.80, which itself would be a big discount fare. united's bargain-basement blooper this week was apparently first spotted by an unnamed indian engineer in kansas city who was searching late monday for air fares to mumbai. he bought a ticket and then spread the word to other indian workers at sprint. one of those colleagues, naresh boga, went one step further: after buying his ticket, he sent more than 100 e-mails to his friends scattered throughout the united states, including silicon valley. most of them grabbed the tickets before united could act. ''a software glitch on our web site allowed a small number of customers to purchase chicago-to-india tickets for well below the normal price,'' united spokeswoman chris nardella was quoted as saying in the chicago tribune, which first reported the story. ''we have fixed it to be sure it doesn't happen again, and we are going to honour the tickets.'' although united lost a piffling $100,000 on the unintended sale, some industry experts feel it is a small price to pay for the kind of publicity the airline website garnered. the us airline industry is expected to lose $ 1.5 billion this year, considered the worst since 1992. of the nine major airlines, only two -- continental and southwest -- have reported profits for two consecutive quarters this year. american airlines therefore are now throwing the kitchen sink where it comes to selling tickets on the internet, reckoning that it cuts down their cost in terms of commissions to agents and helps them reduce staffing. special deals and extra frequent flyer miles for booking through the website is the norm. united lures about 3 million unique users a month to its site. last month, it booked more than $5 million in ticket sales in one day as a result of ticket sales online. us airways, which is also led by iit-ian rakesh gangwal, expects to sell an estimated $750 million in tickets through its website this year, up from $203 million in 1999. this has helped reduce its distribution costs by $62 million.