Helloworld, Magellan are “friends” of FC, not enemies: Skroo

Helloworld, Magellan are “friends” of FC, not enemies: Skroo
By Hannah Edensor


Flight Centre might be a juggernaut in the travel agent space, but Managing Director, Skroo Turner, said he doesn’t see fellow agencies as threats.

Speaking exclusively to Travel Weekly, Turner said, surprisingly, he doesn’t see other agency networks as competitors or enemies.

“The people who are our friends are Helloworld and Magellan,” Turner said.

“Because the better they are at their job, the better we are, the better our industry is, and we’ll have better results.”

But Turner has no doubt about who his competitors are.

“It’s the direct suppliers and a couple of OTAs – Expedia, Booking.com and the airlines,” he told TW.

That’s not to say that Flight Centre isn’t showing the OTAs who’s boss, however, especially after their recent financial profits and numerous business acquisitions. And did we mention the agency scored a recent ‘Employer of Choice‘ award too?

“We’ll do a billion dollars online this year – we’re reasonably well into it,” Turner said.

“Generally, you can’t be great at everything. The online players would not be great if they tried to do travel as we do,” he said.

“It’s early days. We won’t get a dominant position online but with time we’ll improve. Customers will book simple stuff online and use us for more complex bookings.”

Turner earlier told TW about his plans for retaining novice travel agents, something he said is one of the major business priorities.

“We’ve got to be providing customers with the right sort of expertise – the main thing is retaining novices.”

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