Aggressive plans for Holiday Taxis after Stanyer departure

The transfer specialist said it will continue to pursue expansion plans in Europe and sew up UK distribution through multiple and independent agents, airlines and operators.

New managing director Peter Hilton set out the transfer specialist’s ambitious strategy this week following the departure of former managing director Stanyer last week.

Holiday Taxis said Stanyer left to develop other ventures. It is known he had hoped to agree a hike in the equity he had in the business from 15%. He remains a shareholder.

Hilton, who became the firm’s full-time financial director in January last year, said Stanyer had decided it was “a good time to leave the company in capable hands”.

He said Holiday Taxis intended to dominate the UK market by growing volumes and muscling out smaller players not able to compete on price or quality. It hopes to double the £20 million turnover it expects to make this year within three years.

Holiday Taxis has exclusive deals with Tui Travel, The Co-operative Travel and Thomas Cook, and airlines such as Monarch and easyJet.

Hilton said these deals with blue chip companies not only guaranteed bulk business but also underlined the professionalism of Holiday Taxis.

“The company was built on quality and that will remain, but with volume of business and rising load factors come competitive prices too,” he said.

Key to this is increasing load factors on shuttle buses to drive down unit costs, partly through expansion into markets such as Germany, Scandinavia and the Benelux countries.

“Our intention is to close out the UK market and expand quickly in places such as Germany. Other parts of Europe are a few years behind us in dynamic packaging terms but they are starting to catch up,” Hilton added.