Aviasales (Jetradar)

The Aviasales project began in January 2008. The former name is Jetradar.

Jetradar Limited. The company's office in Thailand.

History

2023: Getting on the list of companies to be "landed"

Roskomnadzor included Aviasales in the list of companies subject to "landing." This was reported in the press service of the department on October 26, 2023.

They noted that the inclusion in the list of persons subject to "landing" imposes obligations on a foreign company to open a branch/representative office or a Russian legal entity in Russia, place an electronic form of feedback with Russian users on its website, register a personal account on the Roskomnadzor website for operational interaction with authorities. In addition, foreign persons are required to restrict access to information that violates Russian law. For non-compliance with the requirements for foreign companies, Roskomnadzor may apply the measures of coercion provided for by law.

Aviasales hit by landing law

According to Roskomnadzor, Go Travel Un Limited (it owns the Aviasales service) is subject to the law on "landing," since it distributes information in Russian on its information resource. The daily audience of the Internet resource exceeds 500 thousand users located in the Russian Federation.

Representatives of Aviaseils, in a conversation with RBC, said that the products of Go Travel Un Limited already meet the key conditions of Roskomnadzor: the information posted complies with the laws of Russia, there is a form of feedback, user data is stored on Russian servers. The decision of the department will not affect the work of Aviaseils, the company emphasized.

In total, 26 companies are included in the register of Roskomnadzor by October 26, 2023. Among them are Google, Apple, Meta (recognized as an extremist organization, its activities are prohibited in Russia), Twitter, TikTok, Telegram, Zoom, Wikimedia, AliExpress, Amazon, etc.^[1]

2022: Changing the name of the site to "Tickets"

On August 16, 2022, Aviasales changed the name of its site to "Biletiki." At the same time, the logo of the airline ticket search service remained the same. Also, the platform did not change the domain name - aviasales.ru.

At the same time, in the social networks "VKontakte" and "Odnoklassniki" the service is still called "Aviaseils." The company's Telegram channel has the same name, only written in Latin letters, Aviasales.

Aviasales renamed the site "Biletiki"

Translated from English, avia sales literally means "ticket sale." So the company decided to Russify the name. While the update only appeared on the website, the mobile application is still called Aviasales.

Aviasales renamed its site the day after the online marketplace Wildberries did the same - its resource became known as "Berries." In addition, the KazanExpress marketplace changed its name to TatarVezut, while the link to the resource remained the same.

Earlier in 2022, the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov pointed out that there are many companies with foreign companies in Russia, while even those brands that fully produce products in the country choose such names in order to attract more buyers.

In June 2022, the State Duma proposed to completely ban signs in a foreign language. At the same time, the State Duma explained that the trademark can be written in Latin script (as in the original), and the rest of the information in Russian.

Of course, the trademark should be written as it is registered, - said Galina Yampolskaya, head of the State Duma Committee on Culture, in an interview with RIA Novosti. - If registered in Latin, then it should be written in Latin. But unguarded elements of this trademark, messages about some additional services should be written in Russian.[2]

2021

Anton Baitsur - the new CEO of Aviasales

At the end of September 2021, Aviasales, an air ticket search service, announced the appointment of a new CEO. It was Anton Baitsur, who had previously worked in the company as an operating director. The former head of Aviasales Max Krainov became the chairman of its board of directors. Read more here.

Raising $43 million

On August 5, 2021, Aviasales announced an investment of $43 million. Elbrus Capital and iTech Capital funds have invested in the service for finding information about air tickets and hotels. The parameters of the transaction, including the share of investors and the estimated value of Aviasales, were not disclosed.

Aviasales intends to spend the funds received from investors on the launch of new products, the growth of marketing investments in Russia, the CIS countries and new markets, as well as on the development of a service for organizing business trips and the Travelpayouts platform - a partner program that allows you to earn money on promoting travel services on the Internet.

Aviasales raised $43 million in investments

We want not only to improve our main product - the search for air tickets, but also to develop new directions that can generate non-annual revenue for the company, "says Aviasales CEO Max Krainov.

According to him, by August 2021, the company "shows results higher than the pre-pandemic 2019."

According to the service's own data, the monthly audience of Aviasales is more than 15 million users. Over the year, the service sells air tickets worth more than $1.6 billion.

The founder of the analytical platform Dsight Arseny Dabbach, in a conversation RBC with, said that Aviasales plans to go public and in a few months will hold an initial placement of shares (). IPO The Elbrus Capital Fund brought Nasdaq the company to the stock exchange HeadHunter and has vast experience in attracting foreign investors, the expert added.

According to Dabbach, Aviasales can value more than $500 million. Advance Capital Vice President Artur Shubaev believes that Aviasales can be valued at $180-240 million.

Earlier in an interview with Interfax, the head of the company, Max Krainov, said that the company's shareholders are the family of its founder Konstantin Kalinov, the iTech Capital fund and the management team.^[3]

2020

Transition of employees to permanent remote mode of operation

On November 11, 2020, Aviasales announced that it had allowed employees to always work remotely. The new rule, called Remote First, applies to both current employees and workers who are still coming to the company.

Location binding - rudiment. You need to work high. If you do what you love, it makes no difference where you are: at home, in one of our cool offices, in a co-working space in Barcelona or in a rented apartment in Brazil... Now every employee can work from any of our offices: in Moscow, in Phuket, in St. Petersburg. Or not from the office at all, - wrote HR Director of Aviasales Polina Le Havre on her Facebook page.

Aviasales allowed employees to always work remotely

According to her, the past six months, during which, due to the pandemic, most employees worked remotely, proved that their physical absence in the office does not affect the quality of work in any way.

The company noted that employees could work remotely for two months a year before the pandemic. About 40 people were constantly out of offices. In addition, Aviasales executive Max Krainov managed the company for eight years while in Australia.

In total, Aviasales has more than 300 people (as of November 11, 2020). All employees, including those in leadership positions, will be able to switch to remote. Offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Phuket will become coworking spaces, without fixed jobs.

Aviasales became the first company in Russia to offer employees a remote format of work on an ongoing basis, a representative of the airline price aggregator told Kommersant. In the US, the same principle was previously implemented by Twitter and Reddit. The largest Russian Internet and IT companies, including Yandex, Mail.ru Group, Avito, Qiwi, previously announced the temporary introduction of a remote mode due to the pandemic.^[4][5]

Aviasales introduced a metasearch of airline tickets for business

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Everything is in the best traditions: quick search, convenient flights, fair prices without hidden payments and additional fees. Only now for business: -- >

The service makes it possible to pay for an order from a legal entity's deposit, and optimizes document flow.

In your personal account, you can issue tickets, control expenses, track flights and make changes to the order. The service is also adapted for mobile devices.

As of May 28, 2020, access to the personal account is provided only to company managers, but in a month each employee will be able to find and book tickets - this will significantly save time for managers. Thanks to phased coordination, the process of paperwork and payment will remain under clear control.

Our mission is to make business travel convenient for employees and easy for the company. We strive to create a service that will allow employees to independently issue business trips, and managers can easily manage all processes. We started with the basic option - buying air tickets. In the coming months, we will connect hotels and railway tickets, add travel policies, coordination settings and other opportunities, says the head of Aviasales for business, Ivan Boytsov.

Aviasales for business is a fundamentally different product that not only combines the advantages of an online travel agency and a metasearch, but also simplifies the organization of business trips. Now companies can quickly find offers from Aviasales partners and receive all closing documents.

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You can use the service after registering tut.- >

2019: Aviasales unveils travel service

At the end of August 2019, Aviasales announced a business trip service. So far, the company has not singled it out as a separate project.

As Aviasales vice president and head of the Travelpayouts Ivan Baydin partner program wrote on his Facebook page, the platform was originally created for internal use, but then the company decided to offer it to corporate customers.

Aviasales announced a business trip service

None of the existing solutions on the market suited us - high prices/inability to set travel policies/lack of approval matrices/a bunch of headaches with closing documents. Having started sawing a product for ourselves, they realized very quickly - it turns out so cool that we just have to share it with the whole corporate world, "Baidin said.

The main features of the new travel management service are listed on the website:

• Flights at Aviasales prices
• Quick access to reporting documents
• Monitoring Travel Expenses
• Setting up a travel policy
• Payment of orders from deposit and postpayment

The service allows you to set budgets, analyze expenses, plan individual and group trips.

The service offers travel tickets without surcharges, payment of orders from a deposit and at post-payment, tools for planning individual and group trips.

Documentation comes to the accountant's and user's mail immediately after booking.

By August 29, 2019, Aviasales is collecting applications from companies that will be the first to access the service.

The service for organizing business trips from Aviasales in Russia will compete with players such as Smartway (controlled by 1C), OneTwotrip, Corteos, Continent Express and others. Earlier in 2019, Sberbank launched a service for booking tickets and hotels on business trips, it is available to corporate clients of the bank.^[6]

2015: Prosecutors to check Aviasales on Anywayanyday claim

Travel online agency Anywayanyday appealed to the prosecutor's office of St. Petersburg with a request to conduct an inspection on the fact of illegal use of trademarks

In mid-summer 2015, the copyright holder of the anywayanyday.com Anywayanyday website sent an official letter to the aviasales.ru management, in which he demanded to stop the illegal use of trademarks registered in his name in accordance with Russian and international law. The copyright holder found a number of sites with domain names identical or similar to the degree of confusion with the trademark "anywayanyday." When using these sites, it is assumed that either the search form is loaded or redirected to the page with the search form aviasales.ru. The most egregious example is a site registered in the national domain of Colombia - "anywayanyday.co," which automatically redirects the user to the website of the airline ticket metasearch.

In their letter, representatives of the online travel agency provided a complete list of domain names, the registration of which they demanded to be canceled within 14 days. Aviasales executives ignored the demand and only called the letter "interesting," "strange" and sent "to the wrong address" in unofficial correspondence.

Having received such an answer, the copyright holder of the anywayanyday.com filed a statement with the prosecutor's office of St. Petersburg in early September 2015, in which he asked to conduct an investigation into the illegal use of trademarks and consider the possibility of initiating a criminal case against the relevant responsible persons.

The agency received a response from the prosecutor's office, which says that the statement was submitted to the Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia of the Central District of St. Petersburg for an audit "on the fact of possible illegal actions" by the management of Aviasales.

It should be noted that a similar situation arose in 2013: then representatives of the online travel agency discovered a number of resources with domain names similar to "anywayanyday.com," when downloading which the user was automatically redirected to the sites of Anywayanyday competitors, including aviasales.ru. At that time, the issue was successfully resolved through the Center for Arbitration and Mediation of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in accordance with the Unified Dispute Resolution Procedure for Domain Names. As a result, the disputed addresses were transferred to the ownership of the copyright holder of the trademark "anywayanyday."

Comments Evgeny Shukhlin, CEO of Anywayanyday: "We could once again return the controversial domain names through the WIPO arbitration center. However, it is very important for us that Russian law enforcement officers understand this situation and assess the actions of Aviasales accordingly. Despite the fact that we do not incur special financial damage from the illegal use of our trademarks, fair resolution of this case is a matter of principle for us. And if the law enforcement agencies of the Russian Federation cannot understand this conflict and bring the perpetrators to justice, we will look for such jurisdiction within which it will work out. "

Notes