Chris Cuddy is stepping down as CEO of price comparison site Cheapflights after six years of commuting between the company's Boston and London bases.
Current executive chairman and a well known public face of the company, Hugo Burge, will take on the additional of CEO role following Cuddy's departure.
Cuddy, who became CEO of the company in 2008, succeeding David Soskin who moved sideways to be a non-executive director, first joined Cheapflights in 2005 as group managing director.
The company has gone through a number of changes in the past few years, from the launch of the Zugu metasearch brand in January 2010 to a major overhaul of the company's old web and advertising platform and relaunch of the site in 2009.
Perhaps most significantly the company recently axed Zugu after buying rival metasearch engine and respected Denmark-based startup Momondo.
The addition of Momondo to the portfolio has made the company more "European-centric", Burge says, although there will be no easing of its commitment to the US and Canadian markets.
The US market is largest source of revenue for the company, an official says.
Some internal restructuring will take place as a result of Cuddy's decision to leave the business, but no senior executive positions will change, an official says.
Cheapflights insists it is business-as-usual and the business is performing well, expecting to attract over 100 million web visitors during 2011.
Nevertheless, the marketplace for flight search has changed dramatically in the 15 years since Cheapflights launched in the UK and more recently in North America under Burge.
Although the business models are different, the company has found itself with significant competitors in the flight search category in the UK from Travelsupermarket and Skyscanner, and Kayak, Farecompare, Bing, Mobissimo and others in the US.
All, however, are watching what Google intends to do with its recently completed acquisition of ITA Software and how it develop its own flight search product.