Flybe’s partnership with Avis takes off

Flybe has seen car rentals booked through its website skyrocket fivefold since teaming up with its long-term car rental partner, Avis, to enable customers booking online at flybe.com to reserve and pre-pay for their Avis car rental in one seamless transaction.

“During our six years of working together, Flybe and Avis have always focused on providing a ‘best in class’ customer booking journey and the ability to pre-pay for car rental is our latest web innovation,” comments Simon Lilley, Flybe’s Director of Marketing.

“The flybe.com website is about driving sales, core flight sales and relevant ancillary products. The ability to pre-pay online with our car rental partner, Avis, does exactly this. It adds value to our existing customer service offering and is clearly something valued by customers based on the volume of bookings we are seeing.”

Together, Flybe and Avis have made the booking process clear and easy for the customer. All the traveller needs to do is enter their payment details at the end of the booking process to secure their car rental. The sophisticated and secure booking system does the rest.

A running total of all elements of the journey is transparently displayed on the right hand side of the booking screen. The customer can then choose from up to six different Avis vehicle types using the easy choice facility, which includes the number of passengers the car can accommodate with luggage, number of doors, availability of air conditioning and price. The customer simply clicks on the appropriate button to add their chosen car to the shopping basket. If they then change their mind on size of car, for instance, they can simply switch to another vehicle.

Julia Kemp, Director of Partnerships and Leisure Sales at Avis, comments: “Avis and Flybe are very proud to announce this latest development in our successful partnership. This new booking tool provides the ultimate customer journey and allows flight and car rental to be booked in one easy step."

Adds Mr Lilley: “We are constantly looking for ways to grow the Flybe brand and generate ancillary revenue streams through adding value to the customer journey, so we’re naturally delighted that, literally overnight, this latest innovation has seen car hire bookings on flybe.com increase fivefold!”