THE FLIGHT OF FANCY

Just how angry is the "cheap flights" guy, do you reckon?

When he started out he had it all. Register the "cheapflights.com" internet address, set up some low cost flights and, whoosh, he was in business. If you were looking for a cheap flight off the internet it was pretty clear where you needed to look.

Then along came cheaperflights.com. Cheaperflights cater for people for whom cheap isn't good enough. "I don't want to save some money. I want to save lots of money. Stop messing around on cheapflights.com and get straight over to cheaper..."

But the joke sure was on cheaperflights when cheapestflights.com set up shop. I mean, what's better than cheapest? There's nothing more inexpensive than cheapest. Stands to reason. If there was some word that covered "even cheaper than the absolute, rock bottom cheapest" someone would be bolting it to the word "flights" and registering it as a dot com today.

What's left after that? freeflights.com? wepayyoutotravelwithus.com?

I like to think that the cheap flights guy is like one of those old James Bond villains. His plans have been scuppered for now, but, trust me, he'll be back with a cat on his lap and a monocle in his eye before you can catch your plane.