Flight Centre to embrace AI agents, ecommerce consolidation

Flight Centre Travel Group has appointed Christopher Steiner as its chief AI officer and Rob New as its head of digital commerce.

The two executives are charged with “accelerating growth” in online bookings - which already account for almost half of total booking volume, with AI to play a central role in that ambition.

Steiner has been in various parts of Flight Centre’s business for almost 24 years, starting out in software engineering before progressing to lead digital strategy and to be a CIO of one of the organisation’s business units.

Rob New also comes from the broader Flight Centre business, having previously been general manager of its Jetmax brand.

Global leisure CEO James Kavanagh said in a statement that “customer expectations are being reshaped in real time by AI, and the economics of online and person-to-person travel are shifting with them.”

“To invest and grow at the speed this deserves, you need people who wake up thinking about nothing else,” Kavanagh said.

"Chris and Rob are exactly who you want leading a transformation like this." 

Steiner will lead an “agentic accelerator program, focused on transforming the global leisure operating model into an AI powered productivity engine”, according to Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG).

"The deployment of AI agents will make our people sharper, faster and better informed and that is what the agentic model is designed to do across every one of our leisure brands and functions," Steiner said.

Meanwhile, New is charged with bringing together “ecommerce platforms and capabilities that power how customers discover, book and manage travel across FCTG's digital portfolio.”

"We have an extensive collection of brands and a significant digital footprint,” New said.

“This role is about unlocking what that portfolio can do when it operates as one connected commercial engine.”