One of the biggest discount airfare sellers in America was based in Honolulu. Cheap Tickets sold seats airlines could not fill at full price. Carriers did not want to cut their public fares, so they sold this extra capacity quietly through Cheap Tickets, which passed the savings on to vacationers. In 1998 it sold about 960,000 airline tickets through call centers, stores, and its website. When it went public in March 1999, the web was about to become its main counter.

Fares You Could Not See

Michael Hartley started the company in Hawaii in 1986. Before that he had founded and sold a charter airline. His business rested on contracts with more than 30 airlines, including American, Continental, Northwest, and US Airways. The airlines handed over unpublished fares on seats that would otherwise fly empty. Cheap Tickets sold them to leisure travelers, who cared about price more than flexibility.

Fifteen Dollars to Cendant

Cheap Tickets priced its IPO at $15 a share on March 19, 1999, and listed on Nasdaq as CTIX. Online travel grew fast, but so did rivals like Expedia, Travelocity, and the airlines' own sites. In 2001 Cendant, the travel and hotel company, bought Cheap Tickets for about $425 million. The brand later passed to Orbitz, and today it belongs to Expedia Group.

Cover: Multitudes of Cranes, Bokushin. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a flock of cranes in flight (cheap travel).