Travellers from the Middle East can now access last-minute air ticket deals with the official launch of lastminute.ae, a new online travel agency born from a strategic relationship with lastminute.com, the European travel tech leader in dynamic holiday packages.
“We see many local OTAs taking a large market share, especially in the metasearch channels such as wego and Skyscanner but we don't see any of the international OTAs really focusing on the region,” says Yiannis Papadonikolakis, General Manager of lastminute.ae, told TTN in an interview.
“We decided to change that.”
Lastminute.com has a fantastic hotel as well as a dynamic package (flight + hotel) product in Europe but in the Middle East they will adopt a flight-first policy, at least for now, explains the GM, because that's where the high demand is.
“Flights are booming, and there are many expats travelling back and forth to their home countries creating a need for a highly competitive flight product.”
The official launch of the OTA (registered in the UAE as MenaStar DMCC) comes as the Middle East is expected to record strong gains in airline traffic with an anticipated increase of 8.8 per cent in 2025, according to IATA.
“After we are established in the market and lastminute.ae is a top choice for flights, we plan to roll out our dynamic packages and extended product range,” says Papadonikolakis.
The site leverages lastminute.com’s technological expertise, extensive resources and vast experience in the online flight sector with the local knowledge of lastminute.ae via its established customer base.
“To win, you need to become local, that’s why we set up our local office in Dubai and we are trying to combine local with international expertise in order to provide the best possible product for the end customer,” says Papadonikolakis, who has a 35-year career in the travel industry and has seen the transformation of distribution go from offline to online, having worked for OTAs since 2003.
This localisation, explains Papadonikolakis, means a bespoke and bilingual website is available, in Arabic and English, catering to travellers from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Each subdomain under Lastminute.ae has different content, local currency and local deals in order to meet the local demand.