United Airlines filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday, leaving consumers and investors wondering how the rest of the airline industry will fare in the wake of this announcement.
Nielsen//NetRatings has taken a look at the Internet traffic generated by airline websites, and overall, traffic to airline websites has made a full recovery since September 11 last year. Traffic to
airline websites was up 9.6% in October (month-to-month), with visitors to the United Airlines Web site growing 18% in October 2002 to nearly 3.4 million, as compared to the previous month.
Year-over-year, traffic to the site jumped nearly 17%. While United Airlines is considered to be the second biggest carrier, the Southwest Airlines, Delta and American Airlines sites drew more
visitors. "The airline industry has experienced positive growth in Internet traffic over the last 12 months and year to year unique audience levels for United appear solid, but they may not tell the
whole story," said Patrick Thomas, senior Internet analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. "A number potentially more in line with United's current problems is the 15.3% decline in traffic to United Airlines'
reservation homepage (http://www.ual.com) from a year ago."
