Up, Up, and AWAY.

THE GOOD NEWS is that airline ticket sales will take off in a big way. The bad news for airlines is that they won't reap the benefits of it. That's according to IDC, which found that the airlines' share of the market will fall below 50 percent by 2001 and continue to drop through 2004, with

These findings will likely be an unpleasant surprise for those major airlines with plans to launch their own kind of online travel agencies such as Orbitz.com and Hotwire.com. "Because of their sizable marketing muscle, these startups will create good publicity for the online travel business," says Joshua Friedman, senior analyst for IDC's consumer e-commerce division. "However, the traditional travel agency model, which includes Internet pure-plays and clicks-and-mortars, will better understand the needs of the traveler and will be unbiased and will therefore get more business."