Online travel agency Flightcatchers targets £1bn in annual turnover

Online travel agency Flightcatchers is aiming to achieve annual turnover of £1 billion after being named by The Sunday Times as among the fastest-growing UK companies with turnover of less than £250 million.

 

The Hounslow-registered business, part of Polani Travel, is ranked 49th in ‘The Sunday Times 100’ in recognition of annual sales growth of 90.13% over three years.

 

Flightcatchers supplier relations director Nasser Siddiq said: “Our target is £1 billion – that’s the goal we’ve set ourselves.”

Flightcatchers and Polani Travel collectively achieved gross sales of £218.7 million in the year to March 2024, which was the turnover figure submitted to the annual Sunday Times ranking.

 

Siddiq noted that about 70% of the year’s turnover came from B2C-focused Flightcatchers, with the rest coming through Polani Travel. Around 30% of the latter’s sales were through its B2B channel.

 

The brands’ turnover figure for the year to March 2021 was £31.8 million, which rose by more than 220% to £104.4 million for the year to March 2022.

 

A rise of around 67% was achieved for the year to March 2023, when gross sales reached £174.5 million, before a rise of 25.3% resulted in the figure for the year to March 2024.

 

Asked about the sharp increase in turnover, Siddiq said: “Coming out of the pandemic, we worked very hard on data. We’re not a traditional travel agency. We’re data-centric and we have a fantastic relationship with airlines. Once you grow with the airlines, you get better rates.”

 

Flightcatchers employs about 300 staff in its Pakistan-based call centre, with about 15 people based in Hounslow.

 

The company opened a virtual travel agency in the metaverse in 2023 in what it celebrated as an industry first.

 

Giving an update on that development, Siddiq said there was not yet a market for travel sales through the metaverse.

 

Instead, he added, Flightcatchers had been placing increased focus on developing its use of artificial intelligence (AI).

 

“We’re seeing a lot of AI getting involved in system processes, so the focus has gone off the metaverse and it’s gone onto AI and system processes,” he said.

 

Historically, the majority of the company’s bookings had been trips to destinations including Pakistan, India, the UAE and Thailand, but those areas now represent about 35% of sales.