Building Flyfi's Crypto-Enabled Travel Platform

Executive Summary

Launching an online travel agency means coordinating live inventory, supplier booking systems, payments, and a steady pipeline of useful destination content. For Flyfi, CookieOnline took ownership of technical execution and delivered the foundations for a cryptocurrency-enabled OTA ready for market launch.

An experienced contract team was assembled through CookieOnline's private network, avoiding lengthy permanent recruitment. The platform was built on AWS Elastic Beanstalk, connected to Hotelbeds accommodation inventory and Duffel flight content, and equipped with cryptocurrency checkout.

CookieOnline also adapted custom WordPress plugins to use licensed modular destination APIs originally developed at Porter. This gave Flyfi's marketing team a way to create AI-assisted, search-optimised destination pages without relying on developers for each new page. Scrum practices, automated testing, and CI/CD quality checks supported a disciplined release process from the outset.

The Challenge: Bringing a Complex OTA to Market Quickly

Flyfi needed to bring several demanding parts of an online travel business together within a tight launch window:

• Multiple live inventory sources: The product needed dependable connections to Duffel flight content and Hotelbeds accommodation inventory, alongside accurate booking flows.
• Cryptocurrency checkout: Payments needed to work as a natural part of the customer booking journey.
• Fast access to engineering capacity: Traditional permanent recruitment risked delaying delivery and adding fixed costs before the business had proven market fit.
• Destination discovery at scale: Organic search required a practical way to produce structured destination pages without making each page a manual development task.
• Reliable delivery from day one: The platform needed consistent releases and automated quality checks without creating unnecessary friction for a fast-moving team.

The Solution: On-Demand Engineering, Cloud & Content Automation

CookieOnline led the technical roadmap and delivery across platform architecture, integrations, team setup, and release practices:

1. On-demand engineering team: Sourced and onboarded vetted contract developers through a private network, giving the project experienced capacity without waiting on permanent recruitment.
2. Scalable cloud foundation: Deployed the backend on AWS Elastic Beanstalk to support managed application deployment, load balancing, and capacity scaling as demand grows.
3. Travel and payment integrations: Built booking pipelines for Hotelbeds accommodation and Duffel flights, alongside cryptocurrency checkout capabilities.
4. AI-assisted destination content: Adapted custom WordPress plugins to connect with licensed, modular destination APIs originally engineered at Porter, enabling the marketing team to generate and publish SEO-focused pages with AI assistance.
5. Structured delivery and QA: Introduced Scrum ceremonies and embedded automated tests into CI/CD pipelines to catch regressions and support predictable releases.

The Business Impact

• Market-ready platform: Delivered a functional cryptocurrency-enabled OTA prepared for public commercial launch.
• Faster team mobilisation: An experienced contractor pod helped accelerate delivery compared with waiting for traditional hiring cycles.
• More efficient content production: Marketing gained a repeatable, developer-independent workflow for creating AI-assisted destination pages.
• Stronger release discipline: Automated testing and CI/CD checks improved confidence in deployments and helped reduce regression risk.
• Foundations for growth: Cloud infrastructure and modular supplier integrations established a platform foundation that can scale with the business.

Capabilities Demonstrated

• Travel technology: Flight and accommodation inventory integrations with Duffel and Hotelbeds.
• Technical leadership: End-to-end roadmap ownership, Agile delivery governance, and CI/CD quality practices.
• Flexible team scaling: Rapid sourcing, onboarding, and support for contract engineering teams.
• AI and content operations: Practical automation to help marketing publish organic-search content more efficiently.

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