For more than 22 years, eSky Group has helped travellers discover the world. Operating across 50+ markets and serving millions of customers globally, the group is one of Europe's fastest-growing online travel agencies, operating the eSky and eDestinos brands across more than 50 websites and serving customers in over 200 countries. Following its acquisition of the iconic Thomas Cook brand in the UK, eSky Group is transforming from a flight-centric platform into a virtual tour operator built around dynamic holiday packages.

eSky had already been working with Checkout.com on acquiring since 2021. In May 2025, the partnership with Checkout.com expanded to include Issuing, giving eSky a unified provider across both the ‘money in’ and ‘money out’ sides of the business. Through this expanded partnership, eSky improved payment acceptance, strengthened liquidity management, and reduced operational complexity – helping the business move money faster while creating a more reliable experience for travellers worldwide.

Challenge 

As eSky expanded globally and diversified its offering, the business needed a payments partner that could support both growth and operational efficiency. Speed compounded the challenge. In the airline market, fares fluctuate by the second. Any delay in the end-to-end payment flow exposes the business to fare drift, eroding margin on a booking where the ticket price moves before it can be locked in. 

Managing the gap between customer pay ins and supplier payouts created challenges in managing working capital, particularly during peak travel periods. Traditional pre-funding models added friction to liquidity management, while maintaining multiple provider relationships increased operational overhead and reconciliation complexity. 

eSky needed a partner that could solve both sides of the equation: acceptance performance on the customer side, and a faster, more connected payout mechanism on the supplier side, without adding further operational complexity.

The team identified several priorities:

• Improving acceptance rates across key markets 
• Optimizing payment-related costs 
• Reducing manual reconciliation and operational workload
• Improving liquidity access and cash flow management 
• Minimizing the risk of supplier payment delays during peak demand 
  eSky selected Checkout.com because of its ability to combine acquiring and issuing within a single platform, supported by payment optimization expertise and dedicated strategic guidance. 

Solution

Using Checkout.com’s Acquiring, Gateway, Authentication, Network Tokens, Intelligent Acceptance, and Issuing capabilities, eSky consolidates critical parts of its payments infrastructure into a single provider relationship. 

On the acquiring side, Checkout.com offers a suite of optimizations to lift acceptance rates and reduce friction. Intelligent Acceptance, Checkout’s AI-powered optimization engine, applies specialized logic to each transaction, so eSky’s team no longer manages exemption strategies manually. 

On the issuing side, eSky can now generate virtual cards to pay airlines, hotels, and other travel suppliers. This closes the gap between pay in and payout, removing the need to pre-fund balances in multiple currencies ahead of time. 

By handling a majority of eSky’s acquiring volume, Checkout.com can use customer booking inflows made available through its Checkout.com account to fund supplier payouts almost immediately, without having to pre-fund balances across multiple currencies. 

Critically, virtual cards can be generated in milliseconds, helping eSky move faster in a market where the underlying product – the fare itself – can change before a traditional payment flow is complete

Checkout.com implemented payment optimizations tailored to eSky’s travel business model, including Intelligent Acceptance and Transaction Risk Analysis (TRA) routing designed to improve authorization performance while maintaining a strong customer experience. 

Results

“The most important benefit has been the improved cash flow. Money in and money out are now connected – customer payments coming in, and supplier payments via issued cards going out. We get faster, more secure payouts without needing to pre-fund in advance across many different currencies” Grzegorz Kwiecien, Head of Payments and Fraud Protection at eSky Group

The acquiring optimizations have delivered measurable performance gains. In H1 2026, Intelligent Acceptance lifted eSky’s acceptance rate by 4.68% and Network Tokens contributed a further 1.65%. The move from TRA250 to TRA500 also expanded the volume of transactions eligible for frictionless flow, removing authentication steps for a greater proportion of customers. 

The bigger shift has been on working capital. By unifying acquiring and issuing with a single provider, eSky has eradicated the need to maintain  large pre-funded balances across multiple currencies. Customer payments and supplier payments are now connected in a way that they weren’t before, giving the treasury team clearer end-to-end visibility of cash flow – making reconciliation and cash forecasting easier. By reducing the risk of payout delays and manual intervention, the partnership also helped protect the customer experience during periods of high demand.

Key outcomes included:

• +4.68% increase in acceptance rates driven by Intelligent Acceptance in H1 2026
• +1.65% increase in acceptance rates driven by Network Tokens in H1 2026 
• Inventory and price protection: Virtual cards generated in milliseconds, helping lock flight prices faster and protect margins
• Reduced reliance on multi-currency pre-funded buffers
• Improved liquidity access by connecting customer payment inflows directly to supplier payouts
• Reduced operational workload through the decommissioning of a manual bank transfer process, faster investigation of fulfilment issues, and fewer payment exceptions
• Lower risk of supplier payment disruption during peak booking periods

The future 

As eSky continues expanding its global travel offering, Checkout.com remains a strategic payments partner supporting the next phase of growth.

With issuing now integrated into its payments ecosystem, eSky is generating virtual cards to pay suppliers in a more controlled and trackable way, while also benefiting from competitive rebate structures.

The business also plans to continue strengthening payout speed and operational efficiency through near immediate supplier payouts powered by acquiring funds.

Alongside platform capabilities, eSky benefits from ongoing strategic support from Checkout.com, including access to payment expertise, optimization guidance, and early access to emerging tools and solutions.

Together, the partnership is helping eSky build a faster, more scalable payments operation designed for the future of global travel.