THIRTY-SEVENT Chinese airlines have partnered with Umetrip to begin direct ticket sales on the leading Chinese civil aviation information service platform. Users can now purchase tickets directly from Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, and 34 other Chinese carriers on Umetrip, without involving any online travel agencies or third-party suppliers. Umetrip is a subsidiary of TravelSky Technology, a Chinese State-owned provider of information technology services to the Chinese civil aviation and tourism industries. China Eastern and China Southern are among its shareholders. The primary goal of this new ticket business is to address user concerns, such as those related to bundled packages and price hikes on online travel platforms, Umetrip said, adding that it believes that establishing a direct sales model is the only way to solve these problems at the source. The proportion of direct ticket sales by Chinese airlines remains insufficient, with a heavy reliance on third-party distribution channels, the director general of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) recently said in a conference. These platforms leverage their vast user traffic, convenient booking channels, artificial intelligence algorithms, and big data to influence ticket prices, forcing airlines to engage in price wars to compete for passengers, the CAAC director general noted. The key to alleviating low-price competition among airlines lies in addressing the homogeneous competition that arises from excess capacity, according to industry insiders. To avoid price wars, airlines need to tap into the personalized and diverse travel needs of different passengers and provide a richer variety of aviation products.(SD-Agencies) | 