Having a travel management company at your side has many perks in the best of times:
from the luxury of someone making your travel bookings for you to professional and timely updates on your itinerary at any time of the day or night.
However, when a disaster such as the COVID-19 pandemic suddenly strikes, a travel manager is the hero you need to get you safely back home to your loved ones.
Like many travel advisors, the Corporate Traveller team worked long days to get clients home as COVID-19 travel restrictions saw lockdowns and travel restrictions set in.
A glimpse behind the scenes: 24 hours to get 15 travellers home from Durban to Amsterdam
March was a challenging month for travel consultants everywhere, as the COVID-19 pandemic saw different travel restrictions pop up in different parts of the world. Some countries started closing their borders for travel, while others introduced quarantine requirements or health checks.
One Dutch multinational with 15 expats located in Durban decided on Sunday, 22 March, that it would be safer to fly back all their overseas employees in case the situation worsened. "This was no small task, as there were 15 travellers including families that needed to travel together," recalls
Corporate Traveller Consultant.
Corporate Traveller consultants spent the entire day on Sunday looking for the best flight options to get the Dutch employees safely back to Amsterdam. They managed to secure flights for all of them on 27 March. "It was a huge relief to have secured flights for all of the travellers at short notice," she says.
However, on Wednesday night, 25 March, Corporate Traveller consultants learned that all flights would be grounded from midnight the following day, 26 March. "We had just over 24 hours to get 15 clients onto another flight. I quite literally went into survival mode."
All domestic flights had already been grounded, which meant that the clients would have to drive from Durban to Johannesburg, a drive of approximately six hours. "Together with colleague, we immediately logged onto laptops, along with what must have been every other travel agent in South Africa, to secure flights for our clients. It was impossible to find one seat, let alone 15 seats."
Thanks to perseverance, professionalism and travel knowledge, Corporate Traveller consultant managed to waitlist all 15 passengers on a Lufthansa flight the following evening, just ahead of lockdown. All 15 passengers managed to get onto the plane and head back home to their loved ones in the Netherlands.
One of the clients sent our consultants a heartfelt note after arriving back in Amsterdam: "A big thank you to you and the Corporate Traveller team for all your support over the past few days. We arrived safe and sound in the Netherlands and can't express the gratitude that we feel that we have
been able to get here on time."
A professional travel management company offers vital professional support amid any crisis. However, the value of the travel consultant stretches far beyond crisis management. When business travel resumes – and it definitely will resume – companies will value the strategic insights a travel management company offers to ensure that any business travel yields return on investment. They are the experts that will make sure your company is ready for a post-COVID world with a practical and reliable risk management strategy.