More air passengers are booking their tickets on line in Spain

The Spanish airline industry has projected a 50 per cent increase in the number of “on-line” ticket sales this year. Sources for state airline Iberia and the Majorca-based Air Europa and Spanair, say that Iberia last year sold 300'000 tickets via its website, accounting for 1.5 per cent of the airline's annual income. However, during the first five months of this year, internet ticket sales have already doubled. Sources for Iberia said yesterday that by 2004, the airline expects internet ticket sales to account for 28 per cent of the company's annual income. Spanair chairman Gonzalo Pascual said that last year, one per cent of the airline's total ticket sales were booked on line. But Spanair also expects to see a 50 per cent increase on the 815 million pesetas worth of on line business carried out last year with Spanair's biggest on line market being for domestic flights. Air Europa, the latest of the three airlines to launch its website, is expecting to handle around 1'000 million pesetas of business on line this year, just under one per cent of total ticket sales.