AERTiCKET Suisse is founded at the end of the year. The Zurich-based consolidator pursues two goals. The best flight content is to be made available to Swiss travel agencies and tour operators. And with Cockpit Travel Services a new offer for land services and tour operator services will be created. 

"From 2018, we see ourselves predominantly as a technology company," said founder, managing director and shareholder Rainer Klee, setting the goal. The airline ticket wholesale business model has been under constant adjustment pressure for years, which has become sensitive since the end of airlines' standard commissions.

The Berlin-based company deals creatively with this and develops its own new reservation system - the Cockpit booking world. And reinvents itself.

AERTiCKET restructured - and the travel agency cooperation AER together with CEO Rainer Klee takes over 100 percent of the shares, RT Group and STA Travel leave as shareholders.

In the course of the new structure, the tour operator Explorer Fernreisen, which has been part of the company since 2008, is switching to the RT Group.

2011 brought something completely new: AERTiCKET became a building developer, too. The "AERTiCKET House" - a whole four-storey rear building - was completely renovated, with the owner's agreement. Bright, modern lofts were created in the traditional Wilhelminian building for the 170 or so AER staff. Modern windows and a cooling system ensure a comfortable indoor climate both in summer and winter, and the photovoltaic system on the roof supplies self-generated electricity.

Ethnic Travel has been an important area of business for AERTiCKET for many years, as shown by our investments in the consolidators "The Ticket Team" and "airtuerk". 2008 also brought about an investment in the US wholesale market when the founder and head of Picasso Travel, Huseyin Ozyurtcu, decided on the grounds of age to look for a successor.

The alternative idea turned into a commercial and personal success: within a few years, Titanic Reisen evolved into an alternative travel agency chain with several branches in the Berlin city area.

In 1993, the consolidator AER Reiseservice was founded and Titanic Reisen handed over the consolidation business together with the first three employees to the new company. Under Rainer Klee's management, the course was set for success: after just one year, contracts were signed with around 30 airlines and AER e.V. became the main shareholder of the company. Excellent rates of growth led to ever better contract terms and turnover increased within two years to DM 40 million in 1995.

Three years after its foundation, Titanic Reisen started wholesaling airline tickets professionally and became a member of AER e. V.  By combining purchasing power it was possible to get cheaper tickets and better contract terms. The principle of mutual support took centre stage - it was seen as a purchasing cooperation.

Today's AERTiCKET Group started in 1988, in the city of West Berlin, surrounded by the Wall. The alternative movement in Kreuzberg in the 1980s was creative and innovative. While arranging political trips to Nicaragua, several of the activists had gained so much experience booking flights that they found it easy to open their own travel agency - with the paradoxical name "Titanic Reisen".

Autonomy and independence were key. Titanic Reisen had its own IATA number from the very beginning and travel agencies it had befriended in the neighbourhood came to it to order their tickets. The airline ticket business began with this purchasing cooperative.