Singapore, 15 October – Triple-A sat down with Alex Yardley, Founder and CEO of Fly Fairly, whose career spans commercial leadership and product innovation across e-commerce and travel. Having built billion-dollar operations across three continents, Alex brings a rare mix of analytical depth and entrepreneurial vision to the online travel space. In this conversation, he shares how Fly Fairly is redefining the traveler experience and what’s next for the future of flight booking.

Q1: What inspired Fly Fairly’s creation, and how have technology and innovation helped you
stand out in such a competitive travel market?

When we looked at the travel landscape, we noticed that the biggest OTAs all compete on inventory and price, but very few focus on payments. For most of them, payments are a back-office process rather than a core part of the customer experience. We realised early on that there was real demand for alternative payment options in travel. Travelers wanted the freedom to use BNPL, crypto, or local wallets, not just credit cards. So we built Fly Fairly from the ground up as the payments-first OTA, designed to meet those evolving needs. Our goal has always been to provide freedom of choice to our customers. We offer over 650 airlines and 100 or more ways to pay, including regional and emerging payment methods that traditional OTAs ignore. This approach has attracted communities that were once considered niche, such as crypto users and younger travelers who prefer to split or delay payments. As these user segments have grown, we have focused on providing them with a booking experience that is flexible, transparent, and easy to use.

Q2: Fly Fairly is among the first travel platforms to add stablecoin payments. What gap did you see in existing methods, and why stablecoins?

From the customer side, the key advantages are speed, lower friction, and lower fees. Traditional card payments can take days to settle and often include foreign transaction charges or currency conversion markups. For travelers who already hold assets on the blockchain, paying in stablecoins such as USDC or USDT removes the need to off-ramp through an exchange, which saves both time and cost. It also makes payments more reliable for time-sensitive services like flights, where fares and availability can change within minutes.

From the merchant side, stablecoins open access to a market with over 4 trillion dollars in digital asset liquidity, about 300 billion dollars of which is held in stablecoins. They offer faster settlement, no chargebacks, and lower processing costs compared with traditional card networks. Stablecoins also make it easier to accept funds from travelers in countries with more volatile currencies, such as Argentina, Turkey, Nigeria, and parts of Southeast Asia, where users increasingly hold stablecoins to preserve value.

❝Stablecoin bookings are worth more than twice the average card transaction — proof that this audience travels often and spends more.❞

Q3: Since launch, what results have you seen from stablecoin payments — in conversion,
bookings, or customer engagement?

Stablecoin payments have attracted a distinct group of travelers who book more often and spend significantly more per transaction than those using traditional payment methods. On average, the value of bookings made with stablecoins is more than twice that of card transactions. These customers tend to book higher-value or long-haul trips and appreciate the ability to pay quickly and directly from their digital wallets without relying on banks or exchanges.

Adoption has been strongest in Singapore, Latin America, and Africa, where stablecoins are increasingly used in everyday commerce and as a more stable alternative to local currencies. We have also seen growing interest from travelers in markets with higher currency volatility, where digital dollars provide a sense of security and convenience.

Q4: Introducing a new payment rail brings risks. How did you handle compliance and internal alignment before launch?

We approached stablecoins with a compliance-first mindset. Partnering with Triple-A, which is licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore as a Major Payment Institution, allowed us to operate within a regulated framework for digital payment tokens. Triple-A’s licensing includes strict obligations for AML and KYC, and we rely on their established processes to ensure every transaction meets those standards.

Internally, we maintain our own layers of verification, fraud monitoring, and reconciliation across all payment types. Stablecoin payments settle instantly in fiat, which removes volatility risk while keeping our accounting transparent and auditable.

By combining Triple-A’s regulated infrastructure with our internal governance, we have been able to expand into crypto payments safely, with the same level of compliance and oversight that we apply to traditional payment methods.

❝Stablecoins open access to a $4 trillion digital-asset market and let travelers in volatile-currency regions book flights without friction or delay❞

Q5: What made Triple-A the right partner for Fly Fairly, and what aspects of the collaboration
have stood out so far?

Triple-A offered the right mix of reliability, compliance, and technical depth. Their infrastructure integrated cleanly into our existing payment stack, allowing us to enable stablecoin payments alongside other methods without changing our checkout flow.

The collaboration has been efficient and transparent. Their team worked closely with ours to fine-tune settlement timing, reconciliation, and reporting, which helped make the experience smooth for both travelers and our finance operations.

For Fly Fairly, the partnership delivers two clear advantages. It allows us to serve crypto users safely and at scale, and it removes the technical and operational complexity of managing blockchain payments in-house. Working with a trusted partner lets us stay focused on what matters most: giving travelers genuine payment choice and freedom.

Q6: How do you see travel payments evolving, and where will Fly Fairly focus its next phase of
innovation?

The future of travel will be defined by freedom and personalization. Travelers want to plan, book, and pay on their own terms, using platforms that are transparent, fast, and built around their preferences. Payments are one part of that experience, tied to the larger opportunity that lies in connecting flexibility across every stage of the journey.

At Fly Fairly, we are building toward that ecosystem. We already connect travelers to more than 650 airlines with full transparency on pricing and flexible ticket options. We also offer a wide range of payment choices, including BNPL, digital wallets, and stablecoins, to support how different customers prefer to pay. But these options exist to make the booking experience simpler and fairer, not to redefine what travel is.

Long term, our focus is on earning trust. In a market where travelers are becoming more discerning and impatient with hidden fees or poor service, the companies that win will be the ones that stay transparent, deliver value quickly, and make travel easier. That is what we are building toward every day.