Headquartered in London, Duffel is an online platform that allows users to search, book, and manage flights from multiple airlines. In the latest development, the travel tech startup opened its first international office in New York to help bring its API to more travel sellers in the Americas at such a tumultuous time for the industry.
Duffel founder and CEO Steve Domin, says “With the launch of our New York office, and with Tyler joining the team, this is the right time to accelerate in the US. This new market presence will allow us to build on our customer base in the Americas, delivering more value for our current North American and Canadian airline partners, and bringing new benefits to a wider range of partners, customers and the industry as a whole.”
Focused on America
Right now, the company has Americas-focused partnerships with Air Canada, American Airlines, United Airlines, and WestJet among more than 20 other global airlines. The UK company also made its first hire Tyler Trerotola already in the US.
As per the company, Tyler brings nearly a decade of regional operations experience having most recently worked as a senior strategist at Uber and will head up the US expansion efforts alongside Nicholas Foo, Duffel’s Head of Business Development and Sales.
“Duffel’s global office launch sends a positive message to the wider travel industry that has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic: we’re still very much open for business,” said Duffel’s Tyler Trerotola. “I’m super excited to be joining Duffel at such an encouraging time for the company and I look forward to working with new airlines, agents, and travel startups across the Americas to help us recover from this crisis.”
Allows users to search, book, and manage flights
Founded by Steve Domin, Tom Bates, and Vincent Pastor in 2017, Duffel offers API that makes it easy for travel sellers to pull rich, real-time flight offers, make bookings, reserve seats, and sell paid extras like checked bags. Notably, the online travel company enables sellers to offer exclusive content accessed through the airlines’ New Distribution Capability (NDC) programs as well.
“NDC technology is critical to delivering a seamless booking experience, and it has never been more important than now to drive demand recovery for travel,” said Neil Geurin, Vice President of Sales and Distribution Strategy for American Airlines. “The pandemic has underscored the industry’s need to modernize the travel ecosystem, and Duffel has been a wonderful partner of ours on our NDC journey.”
Raised £43M so far
To date, the company has raised $56.2 million ( approx £43 million) from various investors including premier venture capital firms Benchmark, Blossom Capital, and Index Ventures, to continue these ambitious expansion plans.
In America, Duffel has already attracted new travel sellers to its platform by offering a connection to the biggest airlines in the world at a fraction of the time, and cost.
Startups using Duffel’s API
Various startups including Milla Travel, a corporate booking tool based in Chile, use Duffel’s API to power its product.
“Duffel was the best partner to take our business to market quickly and effectively. We integrated in less than a week and with a single developer, getting us immediate access to the best airline inventory possible. Since then, they have partnered with new airlines key to our market and launched incredible features that allowed us to grow and improve our product,” said Antonia San Martin, CEO & co-founder of Milla Travel.
Flyline, a flight booking app that helps its members save up to 60% on ticket prices, uses Duffel’s API online.
“By allowing us to bypass the long lead times and high costs associated with becoming a travel agency, Duffel’s API enabled us to embed flights into our customer offerings in a fraction of the time and cost—savings we can pass onto our customers,” said Zachary Burau, co-founder, and CTO of FlyLine.