Fly&Joy plans expansion and festival for Ukraine


Andrew McQuarrie


Ukrainian entrepreneur Liliia Ilkevych is planning further expansion for online travel agency Fly&Joy, which has doubled its number of social media followers to 20,000 in the past year. The agency, which joined The


Travel Network Group in February 2024, recently started selling to UK clients in addition to Ukrainian people living in Britain and elsewhere. It said booking volumes had increased 15% year on year in the past quarter. The company now has six staff,


in addition to Ilkevych, and plans to further develop its bookable website. “Our team is [made up of] amazing


Ukrainian women who worked as agents in Ukraine,” said Ilkevych. “They moved to the UK like me


and Fly&Joy has helped them to continue their careers. We’re uniting to develop in a new country and I’m sure that together we can achieve more than I could achieve myself.” Ilkevych was a manager at BNP


Paribas in Kyiv before moving to the UK in 2022 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of her home country. By April last year, Fly&Joy had


amassed 10,000 followers across Facebook, Instagram and Telegram, and the figure has since grown


Fly&Joy’s Liliia Ilkevych (with trophy) receives her TTNG


award alongside colleague Yana Karpenko, flanked by the consortium’s Ionela Dinu-Mihai (left) and Stephanie Slark


to 20,000. The business has also introduced separate English-language and Ukrainian pages on Facebook and Instagram. Although the vast majority of


clients are Ukrainian people, Ilkevych is determined to grow the number of UK customers. Fly&Joy launched a bookable


website in April but plans to develop it have been put on hold while Ilkevych and her colleagues organise a festival. Ukrainian Fest, scheduled for


August 8 in Bude, Cornwall, will feature Ukrainian musicians and food, with Ilkevych hoping to attract up to 2,000 people. Funds raised via the festival will be sent to a


Hays appoints Birmingham to


new role of commercial director Hays Travel has appointed Tricia Birmingham to its board in the newly created role of commercial director, effective from September 1. She will be based at the company’s head office in Sunderland. Birmingham joins from Fred Olsen Travel, where she was tour operations director, and has previously held senior positions at Gold Medal and Shearings.


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Leeds-based charity, which will pass the money on to Ukraine. Ilkevych was presented with a


special recognition award at The Travel Network Group’s conference in Bucharest last month, but her attention was quickly directed back to the war. “The night I got my award, Kyiv was bombed. Twenty people died and more than 100 people were wounded,” she said. “In the evening I was happy about


the award, but in the morning I was crying. My friends and relatives were OK, but my heart hurts all the time because I see buildings and streets where people died and I remember them from just a few years ago.”


Hoseasons parent Awaze names Price as chief executive


Matthew Price has been promoted to chief executive at Hoseasons parent Awaze. The firm’s former group chief financial officer had been interim chief executive since Henrik Kjellberg left the company in January. Sharla Singh will continue to lead the Awaze finance team in the interim, until a permanent CFO is appointed.


Ikos revises trade strategy amid agent criticism


Ikos Resorts plans to “develop new approaches” to its trade strategy and “more evenly distribute complimentary transfers” following criticism from agents. Lee Barker, regional director


of sales and marketing, said the all-inclusive resort brand had spent months working on a project that would benefit agents and “gradually phase out several elements”. It is unclear which elements will


be changed, but Barker said further details would be announced soon. His pledge came after Cartology


Travel agent Sarah Ives shared a post on LinkedIn in which she criticised Ikos for “undermining” the trade on rate parity and voiced her frustration that the brand includes free transfers for customers who book direct but not for all third-party bookings. Barker said Ikos “recognises that


some long-standing initiatives” – including the repeater discount and complimentary transfers – “may now need adjustment to better align with our trade partners’ needs”. “We’ve worked closely with


strategic consultants to develop new approaches and have listened carefully to agent feedback,” he said. “To create a more balanced approach, we will gradually phase out several elements and more evenly distribute complimentary transfers across partners.”


Wexas buys specialist wildlife


tour operator 2by2 Holidays Tailor-made tour operator Wexas has acquired independent wildlife tour operator 2by2 Holidays for an undisclosed sum. The purchase covers share capital in the company and all employees. 2by2 Holidays was founded 22 years ago by Claire Farley, who will step down as director and act on a part-time consultancy basis during the transition period before retiring.


travelweekly.co.uk


PICTURE: Alex Maguire


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