Airpaz’s journey from local flight booking platform to global online travel agency

When Indonesian flight booking platform Airpaz was officially launched in 2014, its aim was simple: let people enjoy their trips, right from the start. Back then, Indonesia’s Millennial consumer base, amounting to almost 70 million people, preferred life experiences like travel over material possessions. Today, they are joined by some 75 million Gen Z consumers, who also share these same preferences.  

Domestic tourism was on the rise, and it was an opportunistic time for Airpaz to enter Indonesia’s air travel market. Globally, tourism was rapidly expanding as well. In 2014, the number of international tourists topped 1.1 billion, 51 million more than the year prior, marking five years of robust year-on-year growth. But would these buying habits transcend into flight bookings?  

Airpaz’s founders bet big that they would.  

Surging passenger numbers

The years prior to Airpaz’s arrival saw robust growth in the number of Indonesian air travelers. In 2009, over 27 million passengers flew domestically. By 2014, just five years later and the date of the platform’s launch, this number had surged by almost 220% to over 85 million. By 2019, it grew further to 91 million. 

Multiple developments fueled this rise. Notably, Indonesia’s rising consumer class stood at over 39 million in 2014, growing to over 57 million by 2019. In addition, enthusiasm for air travel saw the emergence of multiple low-cost carriers (LCCs), especially those flying to domestic destinations — prior to their arrival, air travel was considered too expensive for many Indonesians. A further driver was Indonesia’s growing number of internet users, a large proportion of whom were seeking to purchase experiences like air travel online. At the time of Airpaz’s launch, there were 44 million such customers; in 2019, there were over 187 million. 

This period also saw a significant rise in international travel, where over 45 million passengers headed for overseas destinations across Southeast Asia and beyond. The number of foreign tourists flying into Indonesia grew rapidly as well, from almost 9.5 in 2014 to over 16 million five years later. 

Growth challenges

As the flight booking platform grew in popularity across the region, the preferences of its users further widened. With income levels varying greatly across the region, demand for flights across a wide variety of airlines and price ranges became the norm. However, Airpaz wasn’t alone in its growth aspirations. New flight booking platforms targeting both Indonesian and Southeast Asian travelers were rapidly emerging, taking significant market share from airlines as well as physical bricks and mortar travel agencies.

The company would need to overcome multiple barriers to entry to turn its ambition into success. Chief among these was intense price competition. Many of Airpaz’s rivals were offering the same or similar fares. Profit margins on flights were already wafer-thin, which meant that flight prices across the board were near or at the lowest they could be to attract customers.

There was also the issue of differentiation. Most platforms targeting Indonesians were unable to offer differentiated content. This was also the case for the several hundred online travel agencies (OTAs) targeting travelers across the region. The majority of these were unable to facilitate a wide variety of flight options across both LCCs and full-service carriers (FCCs) and were unable to offer the best flight prices.

Creating a platform that would offer varied flight contents, competitive rates and meet the diverse needs of local travelers would prove challenging. In addition, the company was eager to grow beyond offering just flights and into accommodation. It also aspired to service customers in new markets by expanding into the global travel space. The vision was to become a fully-fledged OTA offering a multitude of travel services to suit the unique needs of travelers worldwide.

Achieving all the above would be extraordinary; some deemed it unrealistic. Yet this didn’t deter the company from striving to achieve its goals — nor did the onset of COVID-19 and the ensuing lockdowns, which would greatly suppress travel, discourage Airpaz from realizing its ambitions. 

Global expansion

With support from multiple partners Airpaz overcame the odds, developing cutting-edge solutions to meet each of the above needs. 

Most significantly, the OTA today provides extensive content coverage and access to the best pricing on the market — delivered through global flight and accommodation aggregator PKFare. Through this partnership, which began in March 2023, PKFare supplies Airpaz with tickets covering nearly 1,500 origin and destination countries, sourcing from nearly 130 suppliers and over 200 airlines. Notably, PKFare helped facilitate Airpaz’s expansion into new travel markets, including the US, Japan and India, among many others worldwide. 

Airpaz offers various fare types catering to diverse content needs, including new distribution capability (NDC) fares, direct fares via airline APIs, web fares, and exclusive inventories at special rates. Access to such a wide range of fares contributes to Airpaz’s price competitiveness. For some carriers, a significant price gaps exist between global distribution system (GDS) and NDC fares, where the former can be twice as high as the latter. Being able to access NDC fares gives Airpaz a noteworthy price advantage, which in turn can lead to higher sales volumes. 

And lastly, technology. The PKFare tie-up enables Airpaz to leverage artificial intelligence and refined operational services to deliver seamless customer experiences: this ensures that only relevant content is served to customers. Notably, PKFare’s API response time is the fastest among Airpaz suppliers.  

Strong sales performance

Since Airpaz’s launch, over 16 million customers have booked their flights with the OTA. More than three million people have installed the Airpaz app on their smartphone via Google Play and Apple’s App Store.  

Critically, revenues have risen robustly. Between March 2023 and November 2024, sales of content supplied by PKFare grew by an average monthly rate of 53%—a 12-fold increase in just 20 months. In addition, PKFare has enabled Airpaz to expand into numerous high-growth overseas markets at scale. Of note, the value of PKFare’s US domestic content provided to Airpaz doubled between Q1 and Q2 2024. 

Most importantly, with the help of PKFare, Airpaz was able to overcome significant growth barriers, notably varied flight contents, competitive rates, and the ability to meet the diverse needs of travelers. Today, Airpaz is a full-service, global OTA, offering customers unique travel experiences that encompass many different parts of the world.

Airpaz’s leadership is delighted with PKFare’s performance. “We’ve greatly benefitted from PKFare’s extensive content coverage and competitive pricing,” the company said in a statement. “We rate PKFare five out of five for its technological capabilities, as there has never been an issue or error with its service.”