A decline in demand for air travel following the US terrorist attacks could provide an opportunity for the video-conferencing industry, it was claimed on Monday.

Ken Burgin, chief executive of Motion Media, the UK video communications group, said its videophones were likely to appeal when it was "not viable or perhaps not prudent to fly".

The company announced that BT was pressing ahead with a videophone trial.

BT has ordered 1,000 videophones from Motion Media, 10 months into an 18 month trial, after promising early results.

The videophones will be on sale within four weeks at BT shops.

BT found that people were using the videophones for an average of 20 minutes, compared to three minutes for speech calls.

Mr Burgin said that BT ought to market the product as an alternative to expensive flights. The phones will retail at £650 each.

"Videophones and video-conferencing offer a very viable option for people who are perhaps less keen to fly at the moment."

Motion Media announced a jump in pre-tax losses for the six months to June 30 from £575,000 ($840,431) to £3.36m.

Turnover fell from £1.41m to £921,000. Losses per share were 3.31p (losses of 0.63p).

Mr Burgin blamed customers putting off orders and other delayed projects for the fall in sales.

The group said it had completed its design work on Orange's mobile videophone.

The shares slipped 1p to 49p.