Cheapflights hires former BA man as top UK marketer

Cheapflights, the international travel price search and comparison website, has appointed former British Airways marketer Joe Sikorsky to its top UK marketing role.

Sikorsky joins as head of UK marketing and will report to commercial director Rob Passmore. He previously spent 11 years at BA, most recently as head of digital, where he managed the airline’s paid and organic search strategies.

BA was one of the first UK airlines to embrace online marketing. Sikorsky, who joins next week, has been tasked with improving the website’s marketing and newsletter functions.

Cheapflights was founded in 1996. It pioneered the travel price comparison model in the UK and introduced pay-per-click in 2000.

It also introduced an American operation, cheapflights.com, in May 2003, which ranks in the top 15 USA travel sites with 2 million unique users each month.

The company estimates that it generated travel product sales of 1bn in 2005 for its advertising partners, which include BA, Thomson, Travelocity and Expedia.