Cheapflights strengthens Canadian team

Press release – 10 August 2008 – Cheapflights Cheapflights, the international leader in flights price comparison, with sites in the UK and USA beta launched its Canadian site (www.cheapflights.ca) (“CFCA”) in April last year. The Company is pleased to announce the appointment of Lorraine Jackson as senior business development manager for the Canadian site. Based…

Press release – 10 August 2008 – Cheapflights

Cheapflights, the international leader in flights price comparison, with sites in the UK and USA beta launched its Canadian site (www.cheapflights.ca) (“CFCA”) in April last year.

The Company is pleased to announce the appointment of Lorraine Jackson as senior business development manager for the Canadian site. Based in Toronto, Lorraine will report to Cheapflights’ head of international, Mo Bulbrook.

She will take on the responsibility of building a stronger relationship with our advertising partners and bring new travel partners onto the CFCA site. 

Lorraine has in depth experience in the Canadian travel market place and has worked for travel companies, American Airlines, Sabre Travel Network and for the last several years at Worldspan (now Travelport Inc) as the Canada Manager & Market Development Strategist for their Travel Distribution Solutions.

Canada is a natural market for Cheapflights into which to expand. It enjoys both high internet penetration – more than 19 million users and a proliferation of broadband access – some 59 per cent of the population.

In addition, the web is the preferred means of researching travel and the second most popular type of online purchase after books and magazines.

The market is ideal for the Cheapflights product because of price competition caused by many players including; travel agents, consolidators tour operators as well as scheduled, charter and low-cost airlines as well as the “long-tail” of small and specialist agencies.

The rapid price changes in seat pricing due to the current world economic conditions, competition to fill capacity and seasonal variations means that consumers can be confused as to where to look for the best available fares.

Cheapflights daily sources its deals not only from airlines and budget carriers, but also from aggregators, online travel agencies and meta-search sites whose names read like a Who’s Who of the travel industry. Those already on the Canadian site include WestJet, Expedia, Travelocity BA, Redtag Vacations, Ticketpilot and flightnetwork.

Bulbrook commented: “Lorraine’s presence will be a huge step forward for the Canadian site and I look forward to working with her.”

“With our successful growth in the USA, as well as in the UK, we see Canada as a natural extension of our North American presence.

“We have been most encouraged to see our existing partners embrace our international ambitions and work with us in Canada.  Furthermore the Canadian site is achieving well over two hundred thousand visits monthly in its “beta” configuration.

“We expect to fully launch Cheapflights.ca in the near future as part of our global expansion strategy.  The site will benefit from the huge content capacity and functionality of Cheapflights’ new international technology platform which are already underpinning our US and UK sites relaunched this year.”