James Kavanagh comes across as a guy who genuinely loves what he does. Whether it’s within the confines of a conference centre, or at a post-event party, you’ll find ‘JK’ – Flight Centre’s Global Leisure CEO – wearing a smile or sharing a laugh with anyone from top brass to those at the frontline of selling travel. Affability aside, you don’t reach a position like his without some serious acumen and know-how.
For one, JK often leads the conversation around AI. At the recent Envoyage and Flight Centre Global Leaders conferences, he delivered astute talks on the future of AI in travel, a technology he sees as a massive opportunity for the sector.
He also helped steer FCTG Leisure to growth during a challenging period in FY25.
It’s this combination of smarts, approachability and love of craic that makes the Irish-Australian perhaps a perfect fit at Flight Centre, which fosters those attributes.
“Flight Centre is the anti-corporate,” JK tells Karryon in a recent exclusive interview in Sydney.
“We’ve got a flat structure, very egalitarian. The core values of ownership, irreverence – meaning reverenced fun – are so important.”
According to JK, culture is about “emotional connection”. However, it’s also an integral part of business success. That echoes the sentiment of Flight Centre Brand’s Global Managing Director Andrew Stark, who at October’s Global Leaders conference called the business’s people its “superpower”.
But while its core components of irreverence, egalitarianism and even rebelliousness are baked in, its culture isn’t fixed.
“Every culture evolves, and our business culture is no different,” JK says.
“It grows and it matures and it evolves, but at the heart of it are people wanting to do great work… but also remembering that you should have fun.”
One needn’t look beyond Global Gathering or Flichella to know that Flighties excel in fun. It’s a major part of the appeal of the organisation, which comprises thousands of frontline sellers across hundreds of shopfronts on five continents.
Flipping the script
The brand’s flat structure, as Kavanagh puts it, goes all the way back to FCTG’s Topdeck origins; when Graham ‘Skroo’ Turner and his young mates founded the tour operator in the 1970s, there was no real hierarchy. That eventually informed the culture at Flight Centre, where “the family model is key”.
“That’s the team-based structure that we have,” JK says. “That means that you, as a leader… have to make sure that [team members] continue to grow and thrive as individuals, and you create a great future for them.”
Even today, Skroo – or “really anybody in the organisation” – doesn’t get “special privileges”.
“So if he wants to travel in business class for domestic travel, he has to pay for the upgrade himself. And that creates that structure,” James explains.
“There’s something Australian about it, because Australia is an egalitarian country at its heart, and we are a great Australian success story. We will never be quite a hierarchical organisation.”
In fact, JK says the pyramid could even go the other way.
“In our organisation, we flip it and go the inverted pyramid and say that top line is our consultants at the front line – those who interact with our customers every day – and everybody else is just bureaucracy, and support,” he remarks.
“Our job is to make sure that they can promote their best at the front line, to be able to provide the best experience for our customers.”
Prepared for possibility
As a Flight Centre leader, whether it be in upper management or as a team leader, JK stresses the importance of keeping an open mind.
“My job as a leader now is to prepare people for imagination, possibilities, what might be, and going into it with an open mind. Embracing change, maximising every system, rising to the challenge… they’re all the qualities that we expect from our leaders,” he says.
JK has certainly had to rise to his fair share of challenges in his role over the years. However, while the travel industry can be prone to even the slightest butterfly effect, it’s also a resilient sector.
“You build up a resilience in terms of your capability,” he remarks.
“We’re going to have another event; we will have mass-scale cyber events; there may be another pandemic; wars will continue, but through all of these, what it reveals is the true skills of the travel agent and the value proposition and when you shine in those moments.”
That aligns with the adage that a travel advisor’s value is most evident when something goes wrong.
“If you look at every event, the travel industry has a sharp recovery; it always comes back, always rebounds. Outbound travel in Australia since 1976 only went backwards six times and every single time it has rebounded,” James says.
“I believe people will always travel. I believe they’ll always want human connection, joy, curiosity, to explore new lands, all of that will continue.
“So with that in mind, no matter what the issue is, you’ll get through it. But it’s a split focus: deal with the now, and have a two to three-year view of what the future could be – and make sure you’re still chasing that.”
Autonomy in action
It also helps when you’re able to steer your own ship. So ownership matters, even at the grassroots level of a global organisation. But Kavanagh says it’s all about getting the balance right.
“It’s a core philosophy of the company. Ownership is what we speak about all the time… you want people to treat it like it’s their own, but they also have to realise that it is not their own 100% in terms of full ownership,” he explains.
“But most of our people are also investors, shareholders as well. So they do own a piece of the organisation.
“And I think with that mindset… how would you treat your own organisation… it takes somebody’s involvement to a higher order.”
That balance between autonomy and being part of a larger organisation also means that wins and losses are shared as a team.
“We talk a lot about taking responsibility as well – that we own our own successes and failures. And as a result of that… we celebrate failure, and that allows people to actually take confidence in taking risks. As a result, we don’t take it too seriously. And hopefully then, other people can learn when things go wrong.”
Don’t take it too seriously – nothing could be more anti-corporate than that.
Check out our full wrap of FCB’s biannual 2025 Global Leaders event in Sydney, where Karryon scored exclusive access to the event. And read more about Flight Centre’s “superpower” and soaring NPS score here.
For more info on Flight Centre, visit www.flightcentre.com.au.
