How FlightHub Became Canada’s Fastest-Growing Online Travel Company – Canadian Business – How to Do Business Better

In slightly over a decade, Montreal-headquartered FlightHub Group has grown to serve greater than three million prospects every year, positioning itself as a trailblazer and chief within the on-line journey trade.

Matt Keezer is the co-founder and former CEO of FlightHub Group and CEO of its mother or father firm Momentum Ventures. He’s dedicated to creating impact-focused companies geared towards reshaping the journey trade panorama.

We spoke to Keezer and Chris Cave, present CEO of FlightHub group, concerning the humble beginnings, challenges and values which have formed the FlightHub success story.

FlightHub’s genesis

“After selling our previous business in 2012, my partners and I were contemplating our next venture. Travel had always intrigued me, so we decided to explore opportunities in this sector,” he says.
Keezer and his business companions opted to make use of an off-the-shelf reserving engine to get their new undertaking off the bottom. They leveraged their collective abilities and experiences to construct what would finally turn into FlightHub.

Their new undertaking introduced some main challenges. The group was working with a restricted funds, however they wished to create worth for his or her prospects inside a short while body–with out compromising on profitability.

In addition, whereas the group had a real ardour for aviation, that they had no particular experience within the sector. This meant they needed to study rapidly and adapt as they progressed.

Says Keezer, “We were lagging behind established players in terms of platform efficiency, booking experience, and content availability. We faced challenges on multiple fronts, including not having the advantages that come with economies of scale.”

Milestones and techniques

Early on, the FlightHub group recognized a thorn within the facet of the airline trade: Content fragmentation. Airlines had been in search of various, cost-effective channels to distribute their content material, transferring away from the normal Global Distribution Systems (GDS),

Recognizing this shift, FlightHub rapidly developed tech able to aggregating content material from varied sources. Their revolutionary strategy allowed them to create distinctive itineraries and pricing choices and distinguished FlightHub from the opposite on-line journey companies.

Cleverly, the group was in a position to pinpoint a handful of area of interest flight routes that had been underserved by the established journey corporations and had been in a position to create worthwhile alternatives inside these markets—for instance, a route from Canada to Romania and a number of other from Canada to totally different places in Africa.

“We continued this strategy of identifying and capitalizing on the ‘lowest hanging fruit’ in the market,” says Keezer. “This approach not only kept us profitable but also enabled us to become more competitive in a broader range of markets over time.”

FlightHub managed to turn into worthwhile inside its second 12 months, which Keezer says was the results of operating a lean group of 20 and maintaining prices as little as potential. This marked their first vital milestone, as the corporate transitioned from a start-up to a rising, sustainable business.

Early in 2014, they reached their day by day gross sales goal of two,000 bookings, and by the top of that 12 months, they started a profitable enlargement into the U.S. market. By 2016, FlightHub celebrated one other notable achievement, reaching the ten,000 day by day gross sales mark.

As the victories stacked up, the give attention to technique intensified. To increase their market attain and preserve tempo with the bigger gamers within the journey trade, the FlightHub group knew they needed to assume in another way and transfer rapidly.

“We worked tirelessly to improve various aspects of our business, including offering better upsells, creating improved add-on products, developing user-friendly apps, and providing a faster, more cost-effective pricing strategy,” says Keezer.

Focusing on the shopper

The core technique for FlightHub, transferring ahead, is to proceed to develop merchandise that really resonate with their prospects. They perceive that sustaining buyer loyalty is an ongoing duty.

As Cave places it, this implies “creating exceptional itineraries and securing the best fares, rates and discounts available in the market.”

Keezer and Cave chalk up the expansion of FlightHub to the dedicated group. “Our teams are dedicated to staying ahead of the curve. They’re constantly working to adapt and innovate, ensuring that we can offer better itineraries to our customers compared to our peers.”

For extra data, go to flighthub.com.