Dusting off the aftermath of the pandemic, Let’sfly, the Chinese flight platform which prides itself on providing good quality low cost airline content via direct API, is building up its global team to expand beyond China.
Ming Foong: “Seeking to diversify to reduce dependence on any one market.”
The flight platform, which started in 2014 focused on providing low cost carrier content to service Chinese agencies, is now connected to 50 low cost carriers and aims to increase that to 60 by the third quarter, by extending its coverage to the Middle East. It is also looking to scale up its agency network in Asia and the Middle East.
Ming Foong, its newly-appointed chief commercial officer, said, “We are focused on covering larger LCC carriers in each key region. We cover about 85% of seat capacity in Europe and 90% in Asia. By third quarter, we will add carriers in the Middle East which will bring us to 80-90% of the market.”
While Ming, who’s based in Singapore, said Let’sfly was not as badly hit by the pandemic as other Chinese travel businesses who were more domestic-focused, it still had to lay off staff and cut costs. “Thankfully, most of the business was in Europe and Asia – markets which recovered earlier – and now the business is seeking to diversify to reduce its dependence on any one market.”
It is building up its commercial team and while Singapore will serve as its international headquarters, it is looking to distribute its servicing, product and tech teams across different regions. Currently, it has 400 staff, half of whom are in product and tech, primarily in China.
Ming, who was previously heading strategy for Fliggy and prior to that, with Travelport, said the reason why it has such a big tech team is because Let’sfly’s direct API connectivity was its most unique proposition to its airline customers as well as the agents using its platform.
Of the total number of carriers, only four are not connected via API, due to the airlines’ API availability. “Direct airline connectivity is not easy to achieve technically which is why we have such a huge team just working on deep content connectivity,” he said.
“This level of deep quality content benefits the OTAs by giving them website parity content including all fare types, packages and ancillaries to service their customers and it reduces grey market fares. It helps travel retailers scale LCC connectivity through standardised unified API, and Increase profitability by supporting retailers’ business models and operational processes.”
Ming said more low cost airlines were beginning to see the value of third party distribution “as strategic to their overall distribution”.
Last week, Ryanair returned to Amadeus after more than a five-year absence from the largest global distribution system operator, signalling that corporate travel was the target of its renewed participation.
“Over time, both sides have seen the value of working with each other and companies like us can bridge the divide. Solving the problem of ‘grey market fares’ will be a good step in this direction.”
Ming said Let’sfly, which remains privately-held to this day, would focus on “going deep rather than broad”.
“We want to focus on what we do best – direct API connectivity with a core group of low cost airlines – and work with a few big agents to provide them with more price-competitive content and do it in a different way.”
While he admits that flights are a low margin business, he said, “They are a necessity and the business is currently profitable.”