More than 400 air ticket agencies in Guangzhou stopped selling discount Air China tickets under the pressure of several airline companies, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported Sunday. 

Air China's tickets were only available at five air ticket agencies, the report said.

China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, Hainan Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, Xiamen Airlines and Sichuan Airlines combined efforts to stop Air China's 70-percent discounted tickets, the report said.

They asked ticket agencies in Guangzhou to stop selling Air China's tickets or lose them as business partners. An agency said that the companies stopped providing tickets to them after they refused to stop selling Air China's tickets. It was only able to sell Air China and Shenzhen Airlines tickets after that.

Air China opened six more flights from Guangzhou to Shanghai every week beginning June 8. It offered a discount of 70 percent for a flight at 8 a.m. Wednesdays. The discounted ticket was sold at 380 yuan (US$46) while the full price was 1,280 yuan.

Some agencies said discounted tickets might have caused problems but the collusion to block discounted ticket sales was not the way forward.

The discounted tickets were mostly obtained by scalpers, who sold them at 580 yuan without giving invoices, the report said.

A citizen surnamed Chen said that he had bought four discounted tickets at 580 yuan for each at an agency, who told him that the additional 200 yuan was a "commission." Chen also found the names on the tickets were someone else but the agency said he could change the names at the airport. Chen boarded the plane after changing names on the ticket at the airport.

However, another citizen surnamed Li said she could not board the plane after buying similar tickets as she had problems changing the name on the ticket.

The airlines' watchdog said the price alliance was reasonable as low price could "disrupt the market order."

Air China said the discounted tickets would not last long and it had stopped discounts at other flights than those to Shanghai.

(Shenzhen Daily June 20, 2005)