Case study
We flew Remote Year customers around the world, then helped them build their own flight department.
Remote Year moved a cohort of remote workers to a different city every month, on fixed dates, across four continents. AirTreks booked those flights from their first groups in 2015 through their fastest year of growth, then built the pricing and process their own team used to take it over.
- Itineraries booked
- 1000+Itineraries booked
- Travelers flown
- 500+Travelers flown
- Fares quoted
- 100,000+Fares quoted
- Cities, across 6 regions
- 29Cities, across 6 regions
The problem
A group of people changing cities, regions and continents every month.
A Remote Year cohort spent each month in a different city. Buenos Aires to La Paz, Prague to Belgrade, Chiang Mai to Bangkok. The dates were fixed long before anyone booked, and the group had to take off and land together.
That is not a group booking. Every traveler started from somewhere different, joined late or left early, took a side trip between cities, or changed plans after ticketing. Cohorts ran concurrently, so several of these were in the air at once, each on its own calendar.
Remote Year needed the same answer every month, quickly, for a route set that repeated: what does this leg cost, which routing actually works, and what breaks if someone deviates.
What we built
A priced, ranked map of every leg they would ever fly.
Rather than quote each month from scratch, we built Remote Year a standing pricing matrix covering the routes their itinerary actually used.
1000s of routes, priced per passenger
Every city pair the programme touched, with a separate winter and summer fare, so a cohort could be budgeted before dates were set.
Ranked by how well each one flies
Each route carried a judgment, from excellent to terrible. A cheap leg with a brutal connection is not a good leg, and the ranking said so before anyone booked it.
The operational detail that decides the fare
Hundreds of the routes carry a written note on what actually happens on the ground: "re-check bags in Bangkok + ferry transfer for 11AM departure", or where two separate tickets beat one and what the bag transfer costs.
A request path their travelers could use
A concierge form on the partner site took group, cabin, cities and dates, plus the passenger detail that changes a fare, and came back inside one business day.
The handover
We built the operation they used to replace us.
By 2017 Remote Year was large enough to want airfare in house. We had put that option on the table ourselves the year before, offering to build them a working airfare desk with the people, process and pricing to run it, rather than simply carry on booking their flights. We want win-win for all of our customers, travelers and companies alike.
That is what the matrix was. Handing over thousands of ranked routes with the operational notes attached is the difference between a new team guessing and a new team working.
Selina acquired Remote Year in late 2020, and the business ceased operations in December 2024, for reasons that had nothing to do with flights.
Planning something similar? Tell us about your programme.
Tour operators and programmes like Remote Year
Run a programme that moves people on fixed dates?
That is the same problem. Tell us the itinerary and where your travelers are coming from, and we will build the flights around it.
No cost to your company, and we handle the travelers directly. Or, we can build an airfare desk for you if you want the control in house.