I'm curious as to why you don’t abandon travel agency work and go into either real estate or used cars where B.S. is really prized?
As a background, I once worked for a charter operator flying 737s. We started out with two aircraft and 35 million 1988 dollars and flew absolutely full aircraft until the money was all gone. Took 15 months. Absent government cronyism, grants and protectionism (none of which are in play currently) there is no way to make a profit on charters or tours. Review again my list of failed Canadian operators. Canada has 37 million frozen people who all want to fly south for some sun every year. If you cannot make charter work there you have Buckley's of making it work here.
Also...wages are about 30% of costs. If you pay people half of what they are worth you can only offer fares 15% lower than a legacy carrier. There is no negotiation on any of the other costs.
WTF does EK allegedly underwriting travel insurance have to do with your proposed deal? And on that subject: Amongst the coverage exclusions “your travel against your home country’s government advice or against local authority advice at your trip destination”. So that rules out Aussies. And the cap is $174K, which should cover about five days of ICU in a US hospital. Sucks if you end up 800K out of pocket.