New Delhi, Oct 23 (ANI/Business Wire India): Tripmela,Inc, India's best source for online travel specials, announced the results of a study that finds that airfares quoted by online travel agencies vary widely across the different websites.

In several cases, the study found differences in airfares of more than Rs.10,000.

Using Tripmela's Searchmela.com airfare comparison tool, the study compared airfares quoted by the four leading online travel agencies across 100 routes within India. There was not a single route where all four websites brought back the exact same fare.

In cases of flights between two secondary cities, the differences were often extreme. For example, a search for flights between Chandigarh and Ranchi found a difference of Rs.10,905 between the highest and lowest quotes.

Just as frustrating for consumers, on 45 per cent of the routes, at least one of the online travel agencies said that there were no flights available between the two cities, even though other agencies quoted fares.

"Consumers who only search one online travel agency prior to purchasing their flights are leaving money on the table," said Jared Blank, CEO Tripmela, Inc, the parent company of Searchmela.

"We recommend that consumers search 3 or more sites to ensure that they are seeing all of the available flight options and finding the lowest fares for their trip. Consumers can certainly take the time to do this themselves. Of course, we recommend using Searchmela.com's airfare and hotel search tool that allows consumers to quickly and easily compare prices from their favorite online travel agencies," Jared added.

All of the news from the study wasn't bad for consumers. One positive discovery was that inexpensive last minute fares were available on many routes, especially between metros.

"Just because you have a last minute trip does not mean that you have to pay extremely high prices," Blank said. (ANI)

Washington, Oct 23 (ANI): A new University of Missouri study has found that decreasing option-based compensation of chief executive officers (CEOs) help in reducing risky investments.

After the recent credit crunch, people have criticised firms' large executive pay packages.

In fact, John White, director of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Corporation Finance, has urged all U.S. companies to consider reduce compensation packages that reward excessive risk-taking by executives.

The new study provides evidence that decreasing stock option-based compensation of CEOs after companies' earnings restatements leads to a decrease of risky investments and improved profitability.

An earning restatement occurs when companies revise their earnings from what they previously reported, because of accounting irregularities or errors.

"While stock options can be used to persuade mangers to take risky positive projects, high levels of options can induce excessive risk-taking in investment decisions," said David B. Farber, assistant professor of accountancy in the MU Robert J. Trulaske, Sr. College of Business.

He added: "When these investments do not produce net positive returns, managers may engage in earnings management to mask underperformance. This can ultimately result in a restatement."

For the study, the researchers analyzed 289 firms that had earning restatements from 1997 to 2001.

It was found that in comparison to other firms, firms that restated earnings were more likely to re-contract with their CEOs after the restatement and reduce the proportion of CEOs' total compensation that was stock option-based.

Following such reduction, the firms saw a decrease in risky investments and improved operating performance, which led to a better bottom line.

"It's easy for the well-intended CEO who has too many stock options to take risky investments. The research results strongly support that a decrease in option-based compensation reduces CEOs' incentives to take excessively risky investments, resulting in improved profitability," said Farber. (ANI)

Mumbai, Oct 23 (ANI): The benchmark Sensex tumbled by over 488 points and again dipped below the 10,000-mark in early trade on Thursday.

The Indian Rupee also hit a record low of 49.68 against the US dollar at the forex market.

Retail investors dumped stocks due to melting global stock markets and dismal quarterly results by some corporates.

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) index Nifty also tumbled by 147.05 points, or 4.13 per cent to 2,918.10.

The 30-share index, which had lost 513.49 points on Wednesday, fell by a whopping 488.62 points, or nearly 4.8 per cent at 9,681.28, a level last seen in July 2006, as all the sectoral indices were trading in negative zone with losses between 2.2 to 5.85 per cent.

Major losers which dragged the Sensex down were Bharti Airtel, L and T, RIL, ICICI Bank, Reliance Infra, BHEL, SBI, Infosys, Tata Consultancy, Satyam Computers, Tata Steel and Wipro.

Meanwhile, the US Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 5.69 per cent last evening, while most of the Asian stock markets were down by almost 6 per cent in opening trade. (ANI)

New Delhi, Oct 22 (ANI): Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel today said that India's airline companies are to repay upto 28 billion rupees outstanding aviation fuel dues to state-run refineries by March 2009 in six monthly installments.

Talking to reporters after meeting with Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli Deora, Patel said that oil firms have agreed to raise the credit period for local carriers to 90 days from 60 days, and refineries would revise jet fuel prices every 15 days instead of 30 days.

"Cumulatively all the oil companies have an outstanding towards all the airlines of close to about 2500-2800 crores depending on the latest figures. The airlines in view of the difficulties have expressed that this outstanding shall be cleared by them in six monthly installments," he added.

Patel said that the industry is lobbying hard to pressurize the government to reduce the Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF).

Patel said he has been urging the Gvernment to reduce taxes on ATF.

"I have conveyed it to the finance ministry, I have met Chidambaram and we have had a word about the taxes imposed on the aviation sector. The ATF is high and is imposed by the states also apart from what the centre imposes. It is high time that we reduce the tax and rationalize it. This demand is not new, I myself have been pressing for it for four years now," said Patel.

Shares of the top carrier Jet Airways rose 2.7 percent to 235 rupees, while the Kingfisher Airlines climbed 3.5 percent to 42.5 rupees after the minister's comments.

But state-run oil firms such as the Indian Oil Corp, the Bharat Petroleum Corp and the Hindustan Petroleum Corp were down 2-7 percent.

The Indian aviation industry, which has combined revenue of six billion dollars, is expected to lose two billion dollars in the current financial year.

After witnessing second fastest growth in the civil aviation world, the Indian aviation industry has hit a huge air pocket and is going through turbulence.

By 2008, the industry had 20-25 per cent excess capacity that too concentrated mainly on trunk routes.

Most of the airlines were recovering only 60 per cent of the actual cost of flying each passenger, which further got aggravated due to sharp hike in fuel prices. (ANI)