FLIGHT Centre Travel Group’s (FCTG) travel booking platform for students and young adults, StudentUniverse, has been closed due to under-performance.
The development was confirmed in FCTG’s latest financial results released this morning, and followed a review of the brand that kicked off last year (TD 08 May 2024) after a sustained loss-making period.
In its revised financial outlook released in Apr, FCTG said StudentUniverse was under the microscope as it looked on track to deliver a $10 million loss for this year (TD 28 Apr).
FCTG had also previously intimated that StudentUniverse’s poor performance may see it folded in with BYOJet, which appears to have taken place in Jun, according to the BYOJet site.
The broader financial performance of FCTG for the latest financial year saw the business deliver a record TTV of $24.5 billion (TD breaking news), up 3% year-on-year in what it described as a “challenging global trading cycle”.
Headwinds included cautious consumer sentiment, geopolitical tensions that escalated during Q4, tariff and entry policy issues in the United States, as well as softness in the global corporate travel market.
While corporate TTV still managed to make a 2% gain to $12.3 billion, FCTG’s leisure division fared better, piling on 6.7% growth to deliver $11.8 billion in TTV.
Revenue also marginally improved during the latest annual reporting period, increasing by 3% to $2.78 billion.
Despite TTV and earnings growth, the business saw its profit before tax decline by 3% to $213 million.
“After two years of strong recovery post-COVID, FY25 proved to be a more challenging trading period,” MD Graham Turner conceded.
He added the challenges should be short-term given they can be largely addressed internally and are cyclic in nature. AB
