As the year 2000 ticks into being, airline operators will be popping champagne corks to celebrate. But not to welcome the dawn of a new century.
Their glasses will be raised to toast some of the most lucrative days in the history of their business. If bookings made so far for millennium get-aways are anything to go by, anyone hoping to be in New York, Sydney, New Zealand, the Caribbean or the Holy Land for the start of the 21st century would be best advised to make the first leg of their journey - to the travel agent - soon.
All airlines are predicting seat sales well in excess of the average for the New Year period.
Several travel agents and airlines revealed that, for instance, all that is left for a return trip to Sydney with British Airways on 27th December are seats starting at £2,167.
A similar trip to New Zealand could still be secured for £1,350 with Japan Airlines.
"With the millennium, flights are very booked-up," is how one agent explained the fares.
Nearly half a million BA seats have already been booked for the millennium period - December 15th, 1999 to January 9th, 2000 - and the airline is forecasting a 150 per cent increase in bookings on last year's figures.
There is little left on flights from Ireland to New York between December 26th and 29th, despite heavy competition on the routes. Aer Lingus's cheaper seats to New York, Chicago and Boston are all gone. So are its cheaper flights to Los Angeles. It will now cost a minimum £629 return to New York and £891 return to the US West Coast.
A spokesman told The Irish Times there had not been a "mass of advance bookings for the month of December, but there has been a significant - and I mean multiples of the usual - increase in pre-booking".
Virgin Atlantic, despite having not even released their fares for winter, is fully booked for its Dublin-San Francisco route on December 26th, 27th and 28th. Its Caribbean flights are also very busy. Delta Airline's economy class seats to New York and Florida are booked up for December 26th and 27th, as are its flights to Florida.
European destinations are also already heavily booked. Ryanair is reporting that all its cheaper seats to London, Stanstead, and Paris, Beauvais, after Christmas are gone and customers face minimum fares now of £127.
The airline notes, however, that its flights into Dublin are more heavily booked than those departing. Overall it is expecting a 20 per cent rise in bookings on its routes as compared with the New Year period last year.
One travel agent speculated that airlines were holding back cheaper seats to create just the kind of pre-millennium panic now being witnessed.
The Christmas period is seen as one of the three busiest seasons. However, this year on top of the broader rush to be somewhere special, some airlines are cashing in further on the millennium. A number of airlines have said they will be leaving fares after Christmas at peak season rates. In the week after Christmas fares usually go back to mid- or low-season rates. As one Dublin agent said: "Like everyone else, with the millennium the airlines will be in to get whatever they can."
December 26th to December 31st would be treated as peak season, a spokesman for Aer Lingus said, in addition to the usual days coming up to Christmas. This adds a minimum of £111 to the price of each Aer Lingus seat going across the Atlantic, as compared with costs in the immediate post-Christmas period last year. Fares on Lauda Airways, which flies via Vienna to South East Asia and Australia, will also more expensive than is the norm after Christmas.
Delta Airlines says it has always treated the first few days of the New Year as part of the Christmas peak season.
Not one airline said it would be adding flights to its normal end-of-year schedule.
