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A little about Flight Centre

Who are we? Glad you asked. We're the travel-obsessed Travel Experts. We're here to open up the world for those who want to see. Every day, we give people all around the world the opportunity to experience something really amazing—travel! We love what we do.

Experience is everything to us. In fact, we have over 38,475 collective years experience in travel. We started doing this thing over 40 years ago in Australia and haven't looked back since. In 1984 Flight Centre opened its doors in the UK, New Zealand in 1987, South Africa in 1994 and Canada in 1995.

Flights, accommodation, vacations, cruises, tours, insurance, you name it—we do it. Business travel? That's our business too. Complex tricky group bookings for a hard to organize event? Not a drama. If it's travel related, we are your people.

We're the flagship brand of Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG), an Australian born international travel company. It's recognized as one of the top five largest travel agencies in the world today with more than 2,000 leisure, corporate and wholesale businesses in 11 countries. Visit our parent Flight Centre Travel Group website here.

Read on and we'll share a bit about our amazing 40-year history and what is important to us...

Travel Experts around the world

stores globally

years of combined experience

of our team are female

of our team are between 30-39 years old

40 years of taking off

It's been 40 years since we opened our very first store in Australia. What a ride it's been. During that time we've had our fair share of triumphs, challenges and of course, plenty of adventures. And, while we're no overnight success, thanks to our incredible teams and first-class customers, we're chuffed to be able to celebrate such a milestone.

Skroo (Graham Turner—our founder) and friend (Geoff "Spy" Lomas) buy a double-decker bus and take off on their first tour around Spain, Portugal and Morocco.

Fast forward your Sanyo cassette deck to the mid ‘70s and that one bus has multiplied like guinea pigs. Top Deck is born, operating in London, and the following year, in Brisbane, Australia.

Welcome to the '80s. Airlines have been deregulated and Skroo reckons Australia, the UK and NZ are ripe for the picking, which makes sense for a bloke who grew up on an apple farm. Flight Centre is born.

Flight Centre opens in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Frankie says Relax don't do it... but we did it anyway and Flight Centre opens in London

We say Kia Ora to our cousins across the ditch, and Flight Centre starts operations in New Zealand.

The Captain first appears (we've had 5 of those, ladies and gents, since!) and we introduce the famous "Lowest Airfare Guaranteed" slogan. Enquiry quadruples after trials on TV and press ads.

The '90s were all about Friends, Seinfeld, Guns n Roses and Flight Centre floating on the Australian Securities Exchange. We open in South Africa, Canada, the USA, and re-launch in the UK. We also welcome a number of new brands into the family.

Throw a shrimp on the braai, because Flight Centre opens in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Flight Centre opens shop in Vancouver, Canada. Profit surpasses $10M and Flight Centre goes public on the ASX. Flighties purchase over 25% of shares available and set an Australian record for take-up by in-house people.

We hold the first Flight Centre Airfare and Holiday Expo at the Brisbane Convention Centre. In our first year, over 8,000 customers attend. An additional 3,000 the following. In 1998, we start Expos across Australia and New Zealand.

The world and travel changed forever with 9/11, collapse of Ansett, GFC and the Iraq War. Many other businesses contracted during this time, our strategy was to keep growing and enter new markets. We also launched the Flight Centre Foundation, our give back program to the communities we work, operate and travel in.

The '10s is when we officially became the Flight Centre Travel Group, reflecting the company's transformation from its traditional roots as a travel agent to a world-class retailer of leisure and corporate travel products.

We immediately know it as the decade when the world stops, and then re-opens. 2020 international boarders shut, airlines ground their fleets, FLT temporarily suspends trading on the ASX and Flight Centre stands down over 15,000 employees. We issue over $1billion in customer refunds.

The future is bright, we've turned 40, launched our new tagline "Experience our experience", travel is back and we are flooded with new and returning customers ready to turn their travel dreams into a reality again.

A truly global company

With over 450 stores, 3500+ Travel Experts and a global website; you'll find us in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and the UK. You will find a heap of us working remotely too, we're truly a global business, helping our customers how and when they need us.

The Trophy Cabinet

Our commitments

Reconciliation We acknowledge the continuous journey towards reconciliation we contribute to in the countries in which we operate.

Foundation Our philanthropic roots were laid 40 years ago, and we continue to make meaningful contributions to charities around the world that support our company purpose, which is to open the world for those who want to see. The Flight Centre Foundation is our way of harnessing the collective goodness of our people, industry partners and customers to give back to the communities where we work, live and travel.

Your dream job Centre

Put simply, we're a bunch of travel lovers looking for more travel lovers to join our family. We support our people the Flight Centre Travel Group way, with opportunities for our people to thrive, connect, give, move and get rewarded. Check out our available roles today.

View open roles

You're the centre of our centre

When you book with us, you know you're booking with the best in the business.

Responsible business practices

As a global leader in the travel industry, Flight Centre have the opportunity to help bring about real, lasting change; we are committed to doing just that.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 2024

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Flight Centre Travel Group EOFY FY23 Financial Results

Flight centre travel group records strong profit turnaround during 2023 fiscal year.

Flight Centre Travel Group (ASX:FLT) recorded a strong profit turnaround during FY23.

The diversified global travel company delivered AUD$301.6 million in underlying EBITDA for the 12 months to June 30, 2023 – an almost AUD$485 million turnaround from FY22’s AUD$183.1 million underlying loss.

The result represented a 265% YOY improvement and was above the mid-point in FLT’S upgraded, targeted profit range FY23 (AUD$295 million-AUD$305 million).

On a profit before tax (PBT) basis, the company achieved an underlying AUD$106 million profit (FY22: AUD$361 million loss) and an AUD$70 million statutory PBT (FY22: AUD$378 million loss).

FLT's corporate travel business continued to out-perform, comfortably out-pacing broader industry recovery and delivering record TTV during FY23.

The AUD$11 billion FY23 result represented 96 percent YOY growth (FY22: AUD$5.6 billion) and an almost 25 percent increase on the previous TTV record (FY19: AUD$8.9 billion).

New TTV milestones were established in all geographic segments, with the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) business topping its previous record by 59 percent, Asia by 24 percent, the Americas by 15.6 percent, and Australia-New Zealand (ANZ) by 10.5 percent.

The Americas business was FLT’s largest corporate operation, generating 31 percent of group corporate TTV, just ahead of ANZ (30 percent), EMEA (28 percent), and Asia (11 percent).

For the full statement to the ASX, CLICK HERE .

Comments by Chris Galanty, Global CEO, Flight Centre Corporat e:

“Our global corporate travel business – with flagships FCM and Corporate Traveler – has continued to outperform, delivering record Total Transaction Value (TTV) in FY23 in a market that has generally seen an improvement, but has still yet to recover fully to pre-pandemic levels.

“We’ve invested significantly for the future by focusing on customer retention and securing large volumes of new clients, in both the large market and SME segments, while expanding our sales force worldwide and introducing new innovative platforms and products for our customers globally.

“We’ve also concentrated on our people, prioritizing recruitment, training, and development ensuring we are fully equipped to help customers as dedicated travel consultants continue to be a critical facet for large businesses and SMEs when it comes to their travel management programs.

“Our grow-to-win strategy has continued momentum, our investment has seen us take huge strides forward, and we’re proud to have opened new headquarters in both New York and London this year.

“This growth focused approach has given us a real competitive advantage and enabled our duo of category-leading brands to boost market share by retaining, winning, and implementing a larger volume of business.

“We continue to be industry leaders when it comes to technology with our innovative proprietary platform for Corporate Traveler, Melon, thriving in both the UK and USA, with AI also making a real difference for our FCM customers. We’re also still proudly the only travel management company globally to have our own aggregator to provide our clients with NDC content through TPConnects.

“As the global economy remains under pressure, the corporate travel outlook is positive, evidenced by our robust performance in FY23, and supported by the Global Business Travel Association’s recent 2023 Business Travel Index™ Outlook , noting that global business travel spend is expected to surpass its pre-pandemic spending level of $1.4 trillion (USD) in 2024.

“For economies to survive, recover, and thrive – big business and SMEs must continue to travel for meetings, events, and conferences to retain staff, recruit the best talent, and win new contracts – these are just some of the factors that have played a part in such a strong corporate bounce back.”

Comments by Charlene Leiss, President of the Americas, Flight Centre Travel Group:

“Put simply, travel is back and back in a big way, for both our corporate and leisure customers across the whole of the Americas. The region has thrived now that travel obstacles are a thing of the past and the reopening of China has also had positive ramifications for the industry.

“Despite economic uncertainty, the USA remains the beating financial heart of the world and we’ve seen SMEs in particular come roaring back to travel, with Corporate Traveler USA revealing that Boston, London, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago were the industry destinations of choice.

“It’s also been a landmark year for Corporate Traveler’s innovative proprietary platform, Melon, with online adoption for customers doubling since the start of the year, online transaction volume quadrupling, and a 98 percent customer satisfaction score received from our chat support.

“As for our large market business, FCM , it was a year when flagship corporates ramped up their travel once again – alongside major account wins such as Shell – and exciting innovation in the technology space with FCM Extension and advancing our use of AI for an improved customer experience.

“Another example of our industry-leading expertise is the fact we’re still the only travel management company (TMC) globally to have our own aggregator to provide our clients with NDC content through TPConnects – putting us ahead of our competitors in this ever-evolving space.

“We’re seeing that large corporations simply must travel to survive and thrive and are valuing a TMC more than ever to ensure smooth operations. Businesses in the technology, biotech, and telecoms space in particular have entrusted us with keeping them moving no matter the scenario in FY23.

“The ‘sugar rush’ theme continued in the leisure space where families and friends have been making the most of capacity returning to the market with a greater choice of who and where to fly both here at home and abroad – it has certainly been a strong summer.

“ Recent figures showed total travel spending improved to 0.9 percent above June 2022 levels and was up 4.7 percent year-to-date through June 2023, with air travel demand increasing 12 percent in June, compared to the same month last year.

“We look forward to an exciting FY24 and working even more closely with our customers.”

The full ASX announcement can be viewed, HERE .

Read the full ASX announcement

FCM Consulting appoints Florian Mueller to lead new aviation practice

FCM named Travel Partner of the Year – Global TMC at The Business Travel Awards Europe

FCM Consulting Q2 Report 2023

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Flight Centre Travel Group rolls out new Envoyage brand

Flight Centre Travel Group has launched a new brand – Envoyage – that seeks to “reshap[e] the landscape of independent travel networks globally.”

The announcement:

Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG), a leading player in the global travel industry, recently announced the launch of Envoyage, its new unified global brand, aimed at reshaping the landscape of independent travel networks globally. Developed in partnership with VML, Envoyage is designed to establish a strong and cohesive brand identity that reflects the unity and collective strength of FCTG’s independent global travel agent network, which previously spanned multiple brands with varying degrees of recognition. FCTG’s strategic move towards a singular global connected brand comes after extensive market research and brand development processes, driven by a need to align with the evolving demands of both travellers and independent travel agencies. Flight Centre Travel Group global managing director of luxury and independent brands Danielle Galloway said Envoyage is the culmination of extensive market research, industry consultation and in-depth design. “The new brand proposition is compelling, memorable and versatile. Our research tells us Envoyage conjures up a sense of aspiration, a feeling of security and an immediate association with travel and personalisation, so it truly embodies everything our independent division is about. Being part of Envoyage will offer travel advisors the best of both worlds – the freedom of running their own business their way, coupled with the power of a truly global brand and community.” With a B2B proposition focused on “future-proofing your business for tomorrow’s demand and growing global complexity,” Envoyage’s core focus will be providing innovative and reliable tools and systems for independent operators. This will help travel agents live the Envoyage brand purpose to “fuel journeys of a lifetime.” Alison Tilling, AUNZ chief strategy officer added “As a B2B brand, it was important Envoyage was positioned as a support. The Flight Centre independent agents and agencies are the heroes, we wanted this connected brand to herald the ecosystem and offer global growth opportunities to each individual business.” The Envoyage brand will roll out more broadly across various markets throughout 2024 and into 2025. CREDITS: Client: Flight Centre Travel Group James Kavanagh, global leisure CEO Danielle Galloway, global managing director luxury & independent brands Astrid Richardson, global chief operations officer Allie Sparr, global head of brand and marketing Agency: VML Chief strategy officer: Alison Tilling Strategy director: Alan Patterson Managing director: Johan Borg Managing partner: Kath Chen Account director: Leanne Keogh Creative director: Kieran Moroney Senior copywriter: Blair Panozza Senior art director: Mick Pollard Design director: Elliot Owen

Source: VML

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We are proud to be Australia's largest travel retailer and our diverse team represents a broad range of backgrounds and our connections span the globe. We strive to create an environment where everyone feels like part of one big family.

Where we are.

Our offices span over 20 locations around the globe. You  can cycle to work across the canals of Amsterdam, catch lunch in the hustle and bustle of New York or soak up the sun after work in Barcelona.

FCTG operates all of its core retail, corporate and wholesale brands in Australia. It is also home to the company’s global head office (in Brisbane, Queensland).

New Zealand

Flight Centre opened its first store in New Zealand in 1987 and is now, with its network of leisure and corporate businesses, is the largest travel specialist in the country.

United Kingdom

Flight Centre Travel Group’s UK operations consist of six corporate and leisure brands across 100 UK high street locations and corporate offices.

South Africa

Flight Centre Travel Group opened its first Flight Centre store in South Africa in 1995. Today, the Flight Centre brand is present in more than 130 locations across South Africa.

United States

Flight Centre Travel Group’s (FCTG) retail presence in the USA is primarily based around the Liberty Travel leisure brand – one of the United States’ largest and most recognised travel agencies. This is supported by wholesale brand GOGO Vacations, and Independent by Liberty Travel (ILT).

Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG) launched in Canada in 1995, 13 years after the first Flight Centre Travel Agency opened its doors in Sydney, Australia.

Where we've been.

We are not an overnight success story. The Flight Centre Travel Group story spans over 40 years driven by the persistence and hard work from all of our people. Today, we are proud to be one of the world’s largest travel companies.

Where we're Going

Our coordinates are set on becoming the world’s most exciting and profitable travel retailer, personally delivering amazing experiences to our people, our customers and our partners. If you ask us, we’re well on our way there. Jump on board and let us take you places.

Hear the stories. See the perks.

HIGH FLIGHT TRAVEL GROUP

Born and raised in Southern California, travel has always been Kimberly's passion. As a young adult, Kimberly followed her heart by embarking upon her travels around the world. Some of the places she's visited are China, Panama, St. Barths, Ireland, UK, Turkey, Monaco, Switzerland, Amsterdam and Italy, to name a few.

These experiences expanded her global knowledge and led to her love for designing travel. With a 14 year background in entertainment, which included planning 10-city book and speaking tours, Kimberly is confident she's following her passion by delivering first-class service to others during their travels.

Kimberly McFarland has an esteemed list of clients that includes, television personalities, actors, directors, entertainment attorneys, high net-worth families, sports figures and major corporations. 

FAA Issues Nationwide Ground Stop For All Alaska Airlines Flights

T he Federal Aviation Administration  issued a ground stop for all Alaska Airlines flights Wednesday morning, halting departures nationwide for both the Seattle-area company and Horizon Air, a subsidiary of Alaska Air Group.

Alaska Airlines told HuffPost that a software upgrade was to blame. Though the issue was resolved by 8:30 a.m. Pacific time, the airline said that it expects flight delays to persist throughout the day.

“This morning we experienced an issue while performing an upgrade to the system that calculates our weight and balance,” an Alaska Airlines spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we requested a ground stop for all Alaska and Horizon flights, which was instituted at approximately 7:30am PT. The issue was mitigated and the ground stop for Alaska and Horizon flights expired at 8:30am PT.”

The airline encouraged travelers to check the status of their flights either online or in its app before they head to the airport.

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The Lost Art of Steamship Gossip

Passenger lists used to offer a voyage full of salacious chin-wagging. we could use some of that energy today..

When the British journalist Don Iddon boarded the S.S. United States in 1954, his first act was to locate a copy of the boat’s first-class passenger list. As he read it, his heart sank —sure, Harry Truman’s daughter, Margaret Truman, was on board, and so were a few prominent businesspeople. But the list, as he wrote later and Steven Ujifusa recounts in the book Seductive Journey: American Tourists in France From Jefferson to the Jazz Age , contained a distinct lack of “big names.” Where were all the movie stars?

With the rise of steamship travel in the 19 th century and into the 20 th century, passenger lists were a central feature of any long voyage—a prized preview among passengers of the kinds of people with whom they’d be rubbing shoulders throughout their journey. Lorraine Coons, a historian who wrote a book on steamship travel, told me that in her research she first notices them popping up around the 1880s. These lists, often color-coded by cabin class, were handed out to new arrivals, who invariably scoured them for names of celebrities. It didn’t matter whether your reputation was favorable or in disgrace—anyone with a high profile would make for good entertainment during the voyage. Journalists obtained copies too: When ships departed from port cities, local reporters ran articles listing out all of the most famous names on board.

What made these lists so unique is the sheer transparency they offered. Royals, politicians, and A-list celebrities were named alongside regular midtier passengers, a rare blending of social classes that, in 1910, prompted one writer to bemoan, “The very best people are set down cheek-by-jowl with the nobodies.” But that accessibility was also the beauty of the passenger list. There was no loophole for the richest travelers: If you wanted to ride on the boat, you had to be on the passenger list.

Today we no longer really have a comparison—those cryptic, initialed upgrade monitors at the terminal gate don’t quite scratch the same itch. On airplanes, travelers are reduced to shuffling through first class while trying to surreptitiously spot a famous face. Increasingly, even that has become difficult, as celebrities flee to full-scale private suites and terminals before boarding their flights via VIP programs that whisk them to and from the plane. For the truly intrepid, there is one way to track a celebrity’s travel movements, through publicly available private jet flight data—and the likes of Taylor Swift and Elon Musk have attempted to quash it.

Although a return to the officially sanctioned nosiness of the steamship era is unlikely, in today’s hyperstratified world, where the wealthiest can pay for the privilege of privacy, we could probably use a little bit of that social transparency. Those old passenger lists helped puncture, at least briefly, the classed dynamics of travel—offering everyone on board equal access to gossip. There was no harm in a little bit of intrigue about your fellow passengers. And who knows: Maybe getting our hands on a list of names could make an international flight a bit more bearable today. A little speculation about the other high-powered travelers on board could ease the tension at high altitudes, inside what is historically a pressure cooker of resentment.

In the context of a weekslong steamship voyage, it was perhaps inevitable that passenger lists would become objects of careful study. In the early 20 th century, the glamour of an international voyage got travelers only so far. Once passengers were away from shore, one of their great challenges was to stave off boredom. Some ships offered lectures ; others engineered musical bands out of ship staff; the Île de France had a bowling alley. What activities the vessels didn’t offer, passengers often cobbled together for themselves. Steamship travelers organized theater programs, boxing tournaments, or large balls. At night, they blasted dance music from gramophones.

And so gossip became a commodity. Many passengers took to self-publishing their own steamship newspapers, covering the personal histories of those on board. Some ship newspapers published blind items about passengers. The historian Martyn Lyons discovered that in the margins of one surviving copy of the Tamar Times, a reader had hazarded guesses about which traveler each blind item referred to. Analyses of passenger lists often appeared in these newspapers too. On one ship, a passenger published a single-issue newspaper called The Rolly-Poly, which included an analysis of all the passengers on the list: “Of the women, all are wives except 78 who aspire to be.” Even the elite consulted these lists to choreograph their social interactions, lest they accidentally get stuck in a conversation with someone unrefined.

That the lowly passenger list could become a focal point speaks to just how dull these journeys were. Passenger lists were not Wikipedia entries: They were bare-bones documents, generally offering names and nothing more. A few steamship operators, Coons told me, did also list travelers’ place of residence, but most were strictly limited to names. Passengers were forced to spin out the (perhaps embellished) backstories of the celebrities on board by pooling together their own spotty memories.

Despite these limitations, observers found ways to sleuth out the rich and famous. A name preceded by a title like “Baroness” signaled a person of importance, and so would the size of each passenger’s entourage. It wouldn’t be uncommon for a rich person’s name to be listed alongside “two nurses and a governess.” One passenger list, for instance, noted the presence of “J.K. Smith and valet.” The medical professor William Thomas Corlett recounted the feeling of disappointment in the quality of the guests on board a ship he rode—that is, until he consulted the list. Only then did he note with pleasure the presence of “Herr von This and Herr von That,” as he put it, “together with a sprinkling of Barons and a Baroness or two.”

Not every steamship company loved the passenger list. Some devised ways to keep their steamships as exclusive as possible so that passenger details wouldn’t spread to the public. The S.S. Carolina , for instance, did not let passengers book partial journeys , for fear it would bring in middle-class clientele and lead to leaks of the passenger lists. Basically: You had to afford the whole trip, or you couldn’t board.

Yet the passenger lists that did reach the public have, in recent decades, taken on an outsized importance. Genealogists and historians alike now rely on passenger lists to track how people moved across the world. Amateur genealogists on Ancestry.com regularly take advantage of passenger lists to trace their roots. So does our most famous chronicler of family history, Henry Louis Gates Jr. In retrospect, these documents also charted social transformations: It wasn’t uncommon for immigrants to include a new name when boarding a steamship, or for trans passengers to embrace their preferred gender. I thought a lot about passenger lists while researching Zdeněk Koubek, a high-profile Czech athlete who transitioned gender in 1935, for my forthcoming history book The Other Olympians . In 1936, when Koubek was newly living as a man, he visited New York, and he appeared in the passenger list alongside his new gender: “Mr.”

I’ll allow that passenger lists may no longer make sense in our tech-surveillance world, where even a simple series of names would get scraped by algorithms. But I think we’ve lost some sense of camaraderie without them—lost that thrill of unfurling the manifest and wondering what you might find. These lists could impress, or they could disappoint, but they always entertained. In 1901 Mary Lawrence, a wealthy Bostonian, leafed through the first-class passenger list of the steamship Oceanic . She was excited to see the name of Otho Cushing, an illustrator and cartoonist whose work she knew. “Here at last was one interesting fellow traveler,” she wrote in her diary, according to the book Seductive Journey .

Nearly a decade later, however, when she rode the same steamship again, the list was not so colorful. Lawrence was crushed. “There was not a soul on the passenger list that we had ever heard of before,” she complained. Today Lawrence’s certainty that the list was a complete account of the passengers on board is striking. It didn’t seem to occur to her that there could be loopholes for people who could pay, that you could scrub your name from the manifest if you were famous enough. And perhaps those loopholes really didn’t exist. Steamships had classed cabins, sure, but there was no special treatment for celebrities: At sea, everyone was on the list.

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Heathrow Airport bank holiday flights under threat as refuellers announce strike, warns union

A similar 72-hour walk-out was called by the unite union involving the same group of workers in july 2022, article bookmarked.

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Fifty aircraft refuellers working at Heathrow airport will strike for 72 hours from 4 May , meaning potential chaos on one of the busiest travel periods of the year.

The action, part of a dispute over terms and conditions for new staff, has been timed to hit travellers over the early May bank holiday .

Those taking part are members of the Unite union working for AFS Aviation. The union says they refuel aircraft for 35 airlines at Heathrow, including Emirates, Virgin Atlantic and Air France, and warns the strikes “are likely to lead to severe disruption to airline services for passengers”.

AFS Aviation also services the three biggest US airlines – American, Delta and United – as well as Air Canada and Singapore Airlines.

The dispute is over reduced pension and sickness benefits for new staff recruited since the start of the year, leading to what the union calls a “two-tier workforce.”

The Unite general secretary, Sharon Graham, said: “AFS is behaving appallingly by attacking the T&Cs of new members of staff – those it views as the easiest to intimidate.

“But Unite will not stand for such bully-boy tactics and we will be backing our members in their fight for improved pensions and sick pay for all staff.”

Unite regional officer Kevin Hall added: “Our members recognise that if they allow this attack on their conditions to take place, before long this will become the norm. Unite won’t allow that to happen and is standing firm with our members on the picket line.

“AFS will have to answer directly to the airlines and passengers for the disruption caused by their unmerited actions.”

Sources at Heathrow say contingency planning is taking place. British Airways, which operates more than half the flights from Heathrow, has its own fuelling service and is unaffected.

The Independent has asked Virgin Atlantic and Emirates for comment.

A similar 72-hour strike was called by the Unite union involving the same group of workers in July 2022, over a peak summer weekend. But the dispute was settled before the action started after an improved pay offer was made.

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Museum and Exhibition Center

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EasyJet cuts winter losses despite cancelled flights due to Israel-Gaza war

Airline says demand has rebounded, with strong bookings at its holiday arm

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EasyJet has cut its winter losses by at least £50m and said it is confident of a record summer, despite higher fuel costs and a £40m loss from the war in the Middle East.

The airline said it expects pre-tax losses of between £340m and £360m for the traditionally loss-making six months to the end of March, in a trading update before its half-year results.

EasyJet said demand for flights had rebounded after a six-week “softening” in searches and bookings from the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October.

The carrier said the net loss from cancelled flights to Israel and Jordan was about £40m, from refunds and lost revenue. EasyJet has now extended until October the suspension of Tel Aviv flights announced this week after Iran’s drone attack . The airline said it expected little direct financial impact from its decision in the coming months.

The region, including Egypt, accounts for a far smaller fraction of easyJet’s operations in summer, down to 0.3% from about 4% in the winter months.

The airline’s first-half profits were boosted by an early Easter, falling in March this year, offsetting a £140m rise in its fuel bill compared with 2023. It said it had been partly protected from rising oil prices in 2024 with 70% of fuel hedged below the current price.

The easyJet chief executive, Johan Lundgren, said: “Bookings continue to build well and we’re confident of building a record summer performance.”

The airline has not given formal guidance for full-year profits, with only about 30% of peak season so far sold, but, according to Lundgren, analyst consensus is “£100m better this summer compared to last year’s record summer, so that gives some idea”.

The group’s holiday arm, easyJet Holidays, has grown by 35% year on year and is 70% booked for summer.

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Lundgren said easyJet would be one of the fastest-growing airlines in Europe this year, with new bases in Alicante and Birmingham contributing to 94 new routes, while overall seat capacity would increase by another 8% year on year, with deliveries of 16 additional Airbus aircraft in 2024.

He said reduction of winter losses was “a pillar” of the airline’s strategy, adding: “This is a step in that direction … I think we have surprised the market, given the fact there are two wars going on, where we are with the cost of living challenge and high fuel prices, that we can reduce them, and we want to do more.”

Shares in easyJet rose almost 3% in early trading on Thursday.

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International Edition

Flight Centre Travel Group Unveils New Global Independent Brand Envoyage

Flight Centre Travel Group's Independent division is entering an exciting new era as it prepares to introduce a prestigious principal brand, Envoyage, to the market.

The brand will provide a true heart and home for independent travel agents and agencies with a polished new visual identity that reflects the Group's experienced global community, industry leading technology and comprehensive product marketplace.

In addition to elevating the existing Independent offering at Flight Centre Travel Group, Envoyage will branch out into unique extensions specialising in the lucrative and expanding areas of corporate and luxury travel.

The name Envoyage combines the notion of connection through envoy and travel through voyage. The “bridge” in the logo represents the growth journey our travel agents and agencies can experience and the incredible travel journeys their customers can go on with us.

Flight Centre Travel Group Global Leisure CEO James Kavanagh said a new global brand will allow the company to continue nurturing the huge potential they see in the independent travel space.

"Independent travel has been one of the fastest growing divisions for us in recent years and the investment in our new brand signals the significant role we expect the network to play in our future business model.

"It's our ambition that Envoyage will become a global powerhouse - the most comprehensive, trusted and recognised independent travel brand in market."

Flight Centre Travel Group Global Managing Director of Luxury and Independent Brands Danielle Galloway said Envoyage is the culmination of extensive market research, industry consultation and in-depth design.

"The new brand proposition is compelling, memorable and versatile. Our research tells us Envoyage conjures up a sense of aspiration, a feeling of security and an immediate association with travel and personalisation, so it truly embodies everything our independent division is about.

"Being part of Envoyage will offer agents the best of both worlds - the freedom of running their own business their way, coupled with the power of a truly global brand and community.

"We look forward to welcoming our existing network of incredible independent agents and agencies alongside newcomers into the Envoyage family."

The roll out of Envoyage will start in the USA in March with Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand to follow.

About Flight Centre Travel Group Independent

Flight Centre Travel Group Independent is a global network of over 1,400 independent travel agents and agencies across the USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. It includes Travel Partners, Flight Centre Independent, Travel Associates at Home, Travel Managers, Independent by Flight Centre, and Independent by Liberty Travel.

The Independent division is part of Flight Centre Travel Group, one of the world’s largest travel retailers and corporate travel managers. The company, which is headquartered in Brisbane, employs about 15,000 people globally and has company-owned leisure and/or corporate travel business in 25 countries, spanning Australia/New Zealand (ANZ), the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Asia.

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— Igor Volk, a Soviet-era cosmonaut whose only spaceflight in 1984 was intended to prepare him to fly Russia's space shuttle Buran before it was canceled, died on Tuesday (Jan. 3). He was 79. Volk's death was reported on the website for the Russian city of Zhukovsky, where the cosmonaut was an honorary citizen. "[Volk] was a representative of the legendary generation of cosmonauts," the city officials wrote on Zhukovskiy.ru . "He will remain in our memory as an outstanding personality, an extraordinary man and a highly skilled, courageous test cosmonaut, who made a contributions to the exploration of outer space and to the knowledge of the mysteries of the universe." Roscosmos, Russia's federal space corporation, confirmed Volk's death in a post to its Facebook page.

Selected in July 1977 among the first group of civilian test pilots for the Buran, the Soviet Union's answer to the U.S. space shuttle, Volk passed basic cosmonaut training and qualified for a spaceflight assignment in 1980. Volk might have then waited for a mission on board the winged orbiter — a flight that would ultimately never come — were it not for an aborted space station docking three years earlier. In the wake of a two-man, all-rookie Soyuz crew failing to dock to the Salyut 6 station, a new rule was instituted by the Soviet space program that every crew had to include at least one person who had previously flown into space. As such, Volk was initially named to fly with Leonid Kizim and Vladimir Solovyov to the Salyut 7 space station in 1983, to provide him the experience needed to lead the first flight of the Buran. Another failed docking mission however, resulted in Kizim and Solovyov being reassigned to a later launch and Volk being added to the Soyuz T-12 mission crew with Vladimir Dzhanibekov and Svetlana Savitskaya, the latter being the world's second woman to fly into space making her second spaceflight. Volk, Dzhanibekov and Savitskaya launched on July 17, 1984 from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome (now located in Kazakhstan). During the Soyuz T-12 mission, the seventh crewed flight to visit Salyut 7, Savitskaya became the first woman to go out on a spacewalk, beating NASA astronaut Kathy Sullivan by three months.

Volk returned to Earth with his two crewmates on July 29, 1984, logging a total of 11 days, 19 hours and 14 minutes in space. Soon after he landed, Volk boarded a Tu-154LL Buran training aircraft and flew an approach following the same flight path the orbiter would on its return from space, touching down at Zhukovsky Air Base near Moscow. The flight demonstrated that a cosmonaut still readjusting to gravity could safely fly the shuttle to a landing, though Volk, nor any other cosmonaut, would have the opportunity to conduct that real re-entry from space. Igor Petrovich Volk was born in Kharkiv, now the second- largest city in Ukraine, on April 12, 1937, 24 years to the day before cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin would become the first human to fly into space and 44 years to the day before the first launch of NASA's space shuttle. A pilot in the Soviet Air Force and graduate of Kirovograd Military Aviation School in 1956, Volk received his degree in engineering from the Moscow Aviation Institute in 1969. He then went to work as a civilian test pilot at the Gromov Flight Research Institute, flying jets, including the MiG-21, MiG-25 and Su-27, as well as a single flight in the "Lapot," an atmospheric test vehicle for the never-realized MiG-105 "Spiral" space plane. After his Soyuz T-12 mission, Volk continued to prepare for a Buran mission by piloting 13 flights of the analog version of the shuttle, the OK-GLI, between November 1985 and April 1988. His last approach and landing flight marked the 25th and last flight for the vehicle, which is now on display at the Technik Museum Speyer in Germany.

The Buran only launched to space once, without a crew, in 1988, before the program was canceled in 1993. "Energiya-Buran is the most powerful space vehicle the world has ever seen, and, had it been given the chance to fully develop, it would have been of great benefit to the people of the Soviet Union and, indeed, the world," Volk wrote in his foreword to the 2007 book "Energiya-Buran" by Bart Hendrickx and Bert Vis. "It didn't get that chance, but the political, and to some extent, economical situation, were not ideal." In 1995, Volk left the cosmonaut corps to become director of the flight test center at the MM Gromov Flight Research Institute in Zhukovsky, a position he held until he retired in 2002. For his service to the country's space program, Volk was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin in June 1984. Volk is survived by his wife, Valentina, and two daughters, Marina and Irina.

Suit Up: 50 Years of Spacewalks

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