In the days of traditional travel agents, no-one ever knew what markup was being applied on plane tickets. But now, with online booking via airlines’ websites, customers get the cheapest rates on their own anyway. Or do they?

The travel industry, in particular the air travel industry is known for its high barriers to entry. With small margins and massive operational costs, airlines offer limited opportunity for third party entrepreneurs keen on starting a business that sells air travel to would-be customers on behalf of the airlines. You know, like in the old days.

Typically, selling air-travel is only feasible as a business model for massive corporations that enjoy pre-existing relationships with international and local airlines, that are able to negotiate lower airfares (and therefore greater profit margin) with airlines, purely because they shift so many seats for them.

As a little guy starting out in the industry, you wouldn’t have access to those negotiated rates. Your margins would be small, and your prices uncompetitive. Until now.

Flightsite is a subsidiary of Club Travel (one of those big boys), and it is set to disrupt the travel industry in a big way by making corporately negotiated rates and deals available to start up travel entrepreneurs.

This is how it works:

Flightsite Agent offers users a web based system which, once a user has registered and been activated, gives them access to net airfares on various airlines. Once the user has loaded money onto their Flightsite Agent account, they can book flights, add a service fee and sell these to friends and family.  Registering on Flightsite Agent is free and can be done in less than a minute.

As the fares on the system are net, the Flightsite Agent user will be more competitive than any other agency in the market. Flightsite Agent allows the user to search for seats on any airline, including Low Cost Carriers, hold the seats and send quotes to potential customers via e-mail or sms directly from the system. Once the flights have been finalised the user can select to book the flights. This means that the tickets will be issued instantly by the system and can be sent directly to the  traveller. Users can determine their own service fee structure by either charging a flat mark up or a percentage of the fare. They can also customise Flightsite Agent with their own logo, look and feel.

There are no monthly fees, or set up fees. You sign up, load up your account, and you’re an agent, with a competitive price point. Watch that video above – it’s super clear to follow, and quick to watch.

This means that you can either buy and sell flights with zero mark up for cheaper than travel agents, or you can undercut existing travel agents by adding a smaller mark up.

Can you see how awesome this is?

It’s basically a ready-made business in a box, with full branding and sales reporting in place.

You can check it out, here.

Play around, let us know if you make any sales.