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Student Flights Australia

Industry	Travel
Founded	1995
Headquarters	Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Area served	Australia
Key people	Graham Turner (Managing Director)
Number of employees	330+
Website	studentflights.com.au

Student Flights Australia is Australia’s premier youth travel retailer servicing the 18 to 30 youth airfares and youth adventure market. With its company headquarters in Brisbane and part of the Flight Centre Travel Group, Australia, the total number of Student Flights stores in Australia is 76: Queensland (17), New South Wales (20) and ACT (3), Victoria (18), Western Australia (10), South Australia (4), Tasmania (1). Student Flights employs over 330 consultants and support staff in Australia. The current company tagline is ‘Go your own way’ as a testament to the unique itineraries Student Flights creates for its customers.

History

Student Flights is part of the Flight Centre Travel Group and was established in 1995 to give Flight Centre Limited access to exclusive student and youth airfare discounts. The first Student Flights store opened on Swanston Street in Melbourne, Victoria Australia in 1995. During the first year of operation, Student Flights’ first national campaign was ‘Route Deals’. After a steady growth period, Student Flights came out with a new logo and tagline, ‘Cheap Travel for Young People’ in 2006, and grew from 40 shops to 52 locations within a 12-month period with total sales exceeding A$178 million. In 1997, Student Flights began using the tagline, “Cheap flights for students and backpackers”, using the female character of ‘Jilly’ as the face of the brand. ‘Jilly’ appeared on all branding including store windows, in newspapers and at travel expos to promote Student Flights. In 2009, Student Flights received another rebrand with the current logo, tagline, colour palette of black, white and yellow, and a fun personality. ‘Jilly’ was dropped as part of the brand update. In 2011, Student Flights launched Black Market Flights, offering exclusive international airfares to full-time students, teachers or anyone under the age of 26 years. The airfare products are exclusive to Student Flights with leading airline partners such as Air New Zealand, China Southern Airlines, Etihad Airways, LAN Airlines, Qatar Airways, South African Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia. Black Market Flights relaunched in December 2013, with Graham Turner reported as saying that Black Market Flights made up 30 to 40 percent of total student flights in 2012. In 2013 to 2014, Student Flights embarked on another year of expansion across their three key markets of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. As of 2015, Student Flights currently operates in three countries (Australia, New Zealand and South Africa). The company will also launch a mobile-optimised website and e-commerce functionality. Australia In Australia, Student Flights has 76 storefronts across six states and two territories. The most recent store is set to open in Palmerston in the Northern Territory in May 2015 with another eight stores slated for 2015.

Campaigns

On April 1, 2014, Student Flights Australia issued a press release about introducing an exclusive top-to-tail business class seat category as an April Fools’ Day prank. The release was picked up and published by News.com.au and syndicated across 11 other News Corp websites, including The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, Adelaide Now, Perth Now and The Courier-Mail . BuzzFeed listed the prank at number 16 on a list of the top pranks of 2014 , and mX also included the Student Flights’ prank in a round-up of April 1st pranks. Other media references to the prank were made on the Triple J National Morning Show Mornings with Zan, and The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and other Fairfax Media news outlets also rated the Student Flights prank as one of the best April Fools’ Day travel jokes of the year.

External links

• Official website