Are the Airlines catching up online?

SITA has published results of a survey confirming that online air sales continue to soar. "560 million of today’s two billion airline passengers now use the Internet to make their bookings" (travelmole, eyefortravel and SITA itself). If this is true and noting that both Sabre/Travelocity and Expedia had bad first quarters, then the airline tactics of investing more in their own websites and best fare guarantees must finally be paying off in shifting share from online travel agents.