When Flight Centre unveiled its new product team structure – one that moved from geographical-based leadership to a category-led model – it was about more than just enhancing and streamlining product; it was about honing in on its core mission of being a “centre for all travel”, not just flights.
Of course, the new restructuring aims to boost product resonance with customers, but it also seeks to ensure the brand’s “North Star” of “fly, stay, cruise, tour” is represented across all its channels, says Flight Centre Global Managing Director Andrew Stark.
In an interview with Karryon, Stark says that Flight Centre previously “weren’t structured for that sort of positioning statement”.
“We’ll always be famous for airfares… 88% of what we sell is air,” he explains.
“So really, this restructuring in its simplest form… is restructuring our product team to reflect that of our North Star of Flight Centre – Your Centre for all Travel: fly, stay, cruise, tour.”
While those verticals are now globalised, Flight Centre will still have localised product leaders due to “a lot of local nuances in that regard”.
“So this product team basically stocks the shelves, and the geography leaders and the geography product people pick from those shelves and sell in their territories,” he explains.
“We feel it will now position us for greater success over the next three to five years… making sure that our shelves are stocked with product that resonates with the customers we’re targeting.”
Stronger ties
Beyond that, Stark says the new restructuring will “strengthen our preferred partner lens”. Key to this is controlling leakage.
“Our success here is making sure there’s no leakage outside of our ecosystem,” he says. “So our $6.3 billion in sales annually for the Flight Centre brand globally… making sure that 99.9% of that business, or let’s call it 100% of that business, is channelled to preferred partners.
“So it will help us channel better [and] strengthen those partnerships – and therefore our suppliers should see better returns.”
And what tangible differences will frontline sellers see on the shop floors? Firstly, a less complex system.
“Ultimately, for us, we need to ultra-simplify the sales process for our travel experts,” Stark states.
To do this, he says the brand’s 3,000 “travel experts” (i.e. advisors) will have access to a “detailed learning and development program that will ensure that… our people have a very good understanding of what the product is, how to sell it best, and that it’s easy to sell.”
“One of our key philosophies with the Flight Centre brand… is making it easy, both for customers and consultants,” Andrew adds.
“So… easily found, easily booked and easily serviced.” The newly restructured product team will also be key to boosting confidence among travel experts.
“The heads of product across the verticals… they’ll be responsible for taking what they get from supply, creating uniqueness around the product offering, ensuring that our people are well trained on the product that we put on the shelves through varying programs… and then making sure that when they are booking the products that we’re putting on the shelves, they’re selling with confidence.”
Flight Centre expects the most discernible difference for customers will be increased transparency.
“[For] customers who may be booking directly online or directly with a supplier… what you see is not necessarily the end reality when you get to a destination,” the Flight Centre boss notes.
“So I think that trust factor is really important for the Flight Centre brand – making sure that the products that we put on shelves are 100% verified by the brand.”
And if products aren’t resonating with clients, Stark says the business has committed to removing product “quite quickly from our shelves”.
“So making sure that there are real-time trust pilot scores coming through on the products that we are sending to our customers – and that is real time, that can be seen on our website.
“Customers can pick and choose based on testimonials from customers on the types of products that we’re selling.”
Changing channels
Consumers can also expect “a lot more differentiated channel promotions” as Flight Centre works on unique product offerings and delivery.
“We might have app-only deals that go live. Our Travel Tuesdays, which is gaining great momentum for us, where every Tuesday we come up with these deals… we’re seeing that bell curve really moving up,” Stark says.
“So we’ll see a lot more differentiated channel promotions; we’ll see different pricing points for different channels, for different times of the day, different weeks in the month, etc. And obviously… this product restructure comes with a lot of data and insights behind it that actually sets the tone on how we market, when we market, and when we put product on and take product off the shelf. So far more scientifically-based, behind the scenes.”
The new product process comes after a busy period for Flight Centre, during which time the travel giant invested heavily in “deploying new world technology systems”.
“So we launched a new CRM system through Salesforce; we launched a new telephony system through Genesis; we launched a new loyalty program, World360 Rewards, and we had some changes to the way we incentivised our people,” Andrew says.
On top of that, the company recruited an extra 100 FTE (full-time employees) in H1 FY2026 and opened 15 new shops globally.
The new system was also launched during the company’s busiest period.
“Today, our business is generally between a 30 per cent of our results come in the first half, and 70 per cent of our results come in the second half. So it’s not by coincidence. It is a well-planned, well-thought-out process of, ‘how do we get our business ready for the peak?’”
If Flight Centre Travel Group’s first half of the year is anything to go by, when FCTG’s Leisure division – led by Flight Centre brand (which accounts for about half of all leisure transactions – recorded a 7 per cent rise in total transaction value (TTV), expect there to be more peaks than troughs for the company ahead.
