Press Releases
April 2010
Corporate Traveller – Ash Crisis Update – Staff work 24/7
handling 11,000 out of hours calls
Corporate Traveller staff swung into action as soon as news of the UK flight ban broke last Thursday immediately sending out travel alerts to clients and identifying a list of 5,000 passengers booked to fly over the next four days
A special out-of-hours Volcano Crisis Centre operated from Friday 17th April through to Monday 19th April manned by 30 staff covering eight hour shifts from midnight to 9am, 9am to 6pm and 6pm to midnight. In that time they handled 11,000 calls from clients, making alternative travel arrangements for them by rail, ferry or car. In addition some 70 per cent of the TMCs regional branches opened for business over the weekend to help stranded customers get home.
Around 1,000 calls were made by Corporate Traveller consultants to rail, airline and hotel suppliers to find alternative ways of reaching the UK and re-book passengers. Options were taken to fly travellers into another European gateway in Spain, Portugal or Greece, and then take local trains to Paris or Brussels. By constantly monitoring Eurostar availability, consultants were able to grab seats as soon as they were released and make sure clients got on board. The team also booked extra hotel accommodation for clients stuck overseas and offered billback facilities to those clients who had run out of currency
Travel alerts were issued by email every two hours to all clients with updates on the flight ban. Plus Corporate Traveller updated their websites regularly with the latest news and set up links to other useful websites such as NATS, BAA, and the Home Office.
“We did everything we could to ensure our clients were looked after as well as possible in the circumstances. The task was huge but our staff were amazing” said Debbie Carling, executive general manager Corporate Traveller."
“This is where a TMC really comes into its own – this is our area of expertise and we have had staff working round the clock to get clients home. In fact almost every staff member in the company was involved in some way,” she added. “Normally we only have three staff operating our weekend out-of-hours service, but our consultants responded to the crisis and we had 30 people working shifts 24/7. Each of the 11,000 calls they took were answered within seven seconds."
“We guarantee clients highly personal service levels when we take on their business and we certainly proved what that means over the last few days,” said Debbie Carling. “The feedback from clients has been fantastic.”
