LONDON - Kyte – The managed API provider for airline retail that was founded last year – has announced some of the great industry leaders that are backing the company, either as advisors or investors.
These industry professionals will provide strategic advice and share experience to help take Kyte – whose SaaS solution is designed to modernise retail for airlines whilst drastically reducing costs – to the next level.
Four leading figures from the aviation and broader travel industry have already been appointed Doug Anderson, Ellen L. Keszler, Trevor Didcock, and Dirk John:
· Doug Anderson was previously the CEO of two leading TMCs, AMEX GBT and before that CWT, and has valuable aviation experience from his prior role as CFO of SITA.
· Ellen L. Keszler serves on the boards of Extended Stay America, Sojern, and Shep – and is an advisor to Thayer Ventures and Wayfare. Previous board roles include, amongst others, at Travel and Transport, Farelogix, Routehappy, and Abacus.
· Whilst Trevor Didcock’s was CIO of easyJet from 2010 to 2015 and before that CIO of The AA, the RAC and HomeServe. Additionally he has worked as an advisor with the UK Civil Aviation Authority since 2012 and advised Fly Victor in 2015.
· And finally, Dirk John’s most recent role was as Chief Innovation & Digital Officer at the airline LATAM and previously held a senior role at Lufthansa Systems.
Kyte has now signed-up 7 airlines and many of them are already in live-production, either connected via the NDC gateway or by going further into their back-end systems for their direct and indirect sales channels to help achieve the original goals of the IATA introduced NDC (New Distribution Capability).
Additionally, Kyte is currently speaking with investors to close a seed financing round soon.
Alice Ferrari, CEO of Kyte, comments: “Knowing that leading figures such as Doug, Ellen, Trevor and Dirk are behind Kyte is a great honour and a true confirmation that what we are doing is truly adding value to the entire ecosystem.
“Already they are making a huge contribution through their insights, experience and contacts to help take our business to the next level as we continue signing-up more airlines and onboard travel agencies – as well as closing our next round of funding.
“Covid has accelerated the adoption of digital in everyone’s shopping experience and as travellers return their expectations will have evolved. We are determined to ensure airlines can keep up with consumer’s demands empowering them with more control over their offer”
About Kyte
Kyte’s mission is to create modern retailing tools for airlines, similar to what Shopify has done for brands in the B2C space. The company is based in London and was founded in 2020 by Alice Ferrari, previously of easyJet and Founders Factors, and William Phillipson, previously VP of Product Strategy at ITA Software and also co-founder of SilverRail Technologies. Kyte is in its early days but has already built a network of connections for a number airlines through the Kyte API to sell on their own airline channels or through online travel agencies.