United, Delta Act to Prevent Y2K Losses

United Airlines and Delta Air Lines, two of the nation’s biggest carriers that dominate domestic service at Los Angeles International Airport, have taken steps to ensure they won’t get burned by passengers stricken with sudden bouts of year 2000 bug jitters.

To avoid taking potential losses on empty seats aboard flights between Dec. 16 and Jan. 10, both carriers have imposed unusual restrictions on fares to several popular vacation spots. The move is meant to keep customers from tying up seats with reservations they may cancel at the last minute.

United and Delta have made nonrefundable full-price walk-up fares--which typically are refundable--to places such as New York, New Orleans, Las Vegas, Honolulu and virtually all of Florida to ensure more certainty in travel plans among customers.

On Friday, United quoted a price of $1,018.53 for a round-trip ticket from Los Angeles to New York for departure in late December. A Delta LAX-New York flight costs $920.

The restrictions apply to round-trip fares departing from most major U.S. cities.

Flights to Los Angeles during the 25-day period, however, remain refundable. United spokesman Joe Hopkins said Los Angeles was skipped as a nonrefundable destination because the airline doesn’t anticipate that demand to visit the city will be “as intense” as it will to travel to other places that are being cited as hot spots for celebrating the dawn of 2000.

Terry Trippler, editor of Airfare Report consumer magazine, said so far only United and Delta have implemented the restriction but he expects the other major airlines to follow suit, possibly this weekend. “I don’t see any instance where Delta and United would have these nonrefundable fares and the other airlines would not,” he said.

As of Friday, Continental, American, Northwest and the other major U.S. carriers had not added the December restrictions.

Delta spokesman Todd Clay said the Atlanta-based carrier opted to set the restrictions to discourage “speculative bookings,” which can rob spaces from passengers who actually want to travel and can stick the carrier with empty seats.

“When someone really needs to travel, they can’t get the ticket because of speculative bookings,” Clay said.

United’s Hopkins said, “We don’t want a situation where we lose the passenger and the revenue.”

Clay said the restrictions are not unprecedented. He said Delta, United and other airlines initiated similar refund limitations on flights bound for Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics.

Trippler said he understands the carriers’ motivations. “These restrictions separate the men from the boys when it comes to buying tickets,” he said. “I really do see Delta and United’s position in this thing. They don’t want people wasting their time.”

The fares, however, are not entirely devoid of an “out” clause, Trippler said. Passengers can opt to skip their December flights without penalty, he said, and use the value of those tickets for other travel within one year’s time.

* Y2K VICTIM

Prodigy Communications said it will shut down its “Prodigy Classic” online service because of the year 2000 problem. C8