Going Once... Airline Tickets for Auction?

Face it, both eBay and Google have been wildly successful in this Age of Internet by providing a new marketplace for both consumers and advertisers. Now, toss in the fact that airlines have been struggling to make ends meet since the late '80s; the survivors endured by trying to extract as much money as possible from business travelers and then, again, by topping off their planes with leisure travelers.

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That mold developed some cracks, though, in the late '80s. By then, Southwest Airlines was consistently making a profit thanks to short haul routes for business travelers along with a much larger mix of leisure travelers who were taking advantage of the carrier's lower priced tickets (and corresponding lower operating costs).

And more recently, European rivals EasyJet and Ryanair have taken that model to a new level by virtually giving away tickets to those that book early, charging more for last minute purchases, and using the Internet to sell non-airline goods and services (insurance, hotel rooms and more).

Then in the '90s, during the great Internet bubble, there were several business plans in development for airline ticket auctions sites, most of which never saw the light of day.

That's not really so surprising. You see, the airlines have long loathed the Internet: after all, it turned their product -- airline tickets -- into a measurable commodity. No longer were fliers forced to call up a travel agent, ask for a quote, and then pay it, no questions asked.

The Internet turned us all into our own travel agents who could use the Web to make easy price comparisons and pay as little as possible.

Now will we amateur travel agents flock to auctions? Some of us already have -- by late last week, JetBlue's eBay experiment seemed to be doing a brisk business. Early reports said bidding for some tickets had reached a couple of hundred bucks, while the auction was still under way.

If you figure JetBlue was trying to get rid of tickets they weren't otherwise able to sell, well, they're already ahead of the game to get any bids at all.