Finchglow Travels celebrates 15th anniversary, launches mentorship program

L-R: Olumuyiwa Eleshinnla, Head of Sales; Ezekiel Ikotun, General Manager, Sales & Operations; Bankole Bernard, Managing Director/Founder Finchglow Travels; and Innocent Mafiele, Head of Finance.

Finchglow Travels, Nigeria’s indigenous Travel Management Company (TMC) with offices across the country has hit a milestone of 15 years in business.

“I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to our various stakeholders for their support over the years including our customers, the airlines, regulators, trade partners, corporate clients, and above all, my colleagues.

“With their continual support and the foundation built in the past, I have great confidence that Finchglow Travels will do much better in the coming 15 years,” Bankole Bernard, the managing director and founder of Finchglow Travels remarked during an in-house event for the anniversary.

As part of its commemorative activities, Finchglow Travels has commenced the maiden edition of its mentorship program with the aim of bridging the gap between junior and senior professionals in the downstream sector of the aviation industry.

The TMC also announced plans to launch its mobile application – ‘Finch Travel App’ to ease flight bookings and reservations as well as other ancillary services for clients.

“The Finchglow Travels Mentorship Program is our contribution to ensuring that Nigeria has a better structure in place in the downstream sector of the aviation industry.

“We want a system where professionalism prevails and there is a transfer of knowledge between senior players and junior players for continuity and of course improvement,” Bernard added.

In June 2006, the TMC started out in a shop at Falomo Lagos where it sold its first ticket and has ever since recorded growth. Finchglow Travels currently has 8 offices across Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt with a portfolio of servicing top brands in Nigeria and Africa.

Despite the pandemic, the TMC worked round the clock to ensure that clients whose trips were affected got all the necessary support.

“Finchglow Travels is the true definition of humble beginnings. I’m grateful for the privilege to experience it from the beginning till this stage. We will continue to look inwards to come up with processes that make our customers’ experience even better, and that is why we have come up with the Finch Travel Application which will be launched soon”, Ezekiel Ikotun, general manager, sales and operations at Finchglow Travels remarked.

Ifeoma Okeke-Korieocha

Ifeoma Okeke-Korieocha is the Aviation Correspondent at BusinessDay Media Limited, publishers of BusinessDay Newspapers. She is also the Deputy Editor, BusinessDay Weekender Magazine, the Saturday Weekend edition of BusinessDay. She holds a BSC in Mass Communication from the prestigious University of Nigeria, Nsukka and a Masters degree in Marketing at the University of Lagos. As the lead writer on the aviation desk, Ifeoma is responsible and in charge of the three weekly aviation and travel pages in BusinessDay and BDSunday. She also overseas and edits all pages of BusinessDay Saturday Weekender. She has written various investigative, features and news stories in aviation and business related issues and has been severally nominated for award in the category of Aviation Writer of the Year by the Nigeria Media Nite-Out awards; one of the Nigeria’s most prestigious media awards ceremonies. Ifeoma is a one-time winner of the prestigious Nigeria Media Merit Award under the 'Aviation Writer of the Year' Category. She is the 2025 Eloy Award winner under the Print Media Journalist category. She has undergone several journalism trainings by various prestigious organisations. Ifeoma is also a fellow of the Female Reporters Leadership Fellowship of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism.