Client Retention, Growth Boost Flight Centre Half-Year Corp. Business

Flight Centre Travel Group reported record sales for its corporate brands in the first half of its 2024 fiscal year even as overall recovery for the segment has reached only 70 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

Total transaction value for Flight Centre's corporate businesses—which include FCM and the SME-focused Corporate Traveler—increased 16.8 percent year over year to A$5.9 billion (US$3.9 billion) in the July-to-December period, the company reported. Corporate business "has continued to grow rapidly, well above the industry's recovery rate, while also targeting efficiency gains," according to Flight Centre managing director Graham Turner.

The group attributed the record sales to "high customer retention rates" as well as "large volumes of new account wins." As of the end of January, the corporate brands had added new accounts totaling A$1.3 billion (US$850 million) in annual spend, a blend of FCM securing accounts from rival travel management companies and Corporate Traveler adding a mix of previously unmanaged as well as smaller managed accounts.

Part of those efficiencies referred to by Turner include the development of a single operating system for Corporate Traveler and FCM. Flight Centre noted "various legacy systems" will be retired in the coming months as a part of the move.

Corporate business TTV made up 52 percent of overall TTV across the group in the first half of the 2024 fiscal year, which was up 15 percent year over year to A$11.3 billion (US$7.4 billion). That was the second-highest start to a fiscal year for the group, behind only the first half of the 2020 fiscal year, immediately before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the group.

 Flight Centre FY2024 Q1 results