Flight Centre has seen its corporate travel brands enjoy record-breaking sales in September and October as the recovery in business travel continued to gain momentum.
The Australian company, which owns the travel management companies FCM and Corporate Traveller, said that September and October had been its two strongest ever months for total transaction value (TTV) from business travel, with both months topping Aus$1 billion (€650 million).
In a trading update, Flight Centre added that its corporate transaction volumes were now back to pre-Covid levels with revenue at around 95 per cent.
The company said it had been “outperforming” the market thanks to both organic growth and winning more new clients.
Flight Centre said it had won new accounts with projected combined annual spending of Aus$665 million (€430 million) during the previous quarter from July to September 2022.
The company added that “more than half” of Corporate Traveller’s wins were previously unmanaged and this “reflects a move toward managed travel post-Covid”.
Graham Turner, Flight Centre’s managing director, said: “Our corporate business is again outperforming globally, with TTV and transaction volumes back at record levels and monthly revenue approaching pre-Covid levels.
“The last two months - September and October - have, in fact, been the two strongest TTV months in our 30-year history in corporate travel.
“Wins include a mix of large and enterprise-level accounts that will typically trade with FCM and smaller SME accounts that will generally trade with Corporate Traveller.
“More than half of the accounts that Corporate Traveller has won in its key Australia, UK and US markets were previously unmanaged – reflecting the ongoing shift towards managed travel programmes in uncertain times.”