Airline Execs See A Better '09
12.08.2008 - Domestic airline executives this month struck a tone of optimism despite a bleak economic environment, slowing demand and falling revenue, as declining fuel costs and aggressive 2008 capacity cuts are setting the stage for profits in 2009.
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ITMCs Step Up International Plans
12.08.2008 - The Internet travel management companies are accelerating international expansion plans for 2009 as many of their clients broaden the scopes of their travel programs and look to consolidate suppliers globally. Egencia, Orbitz for Business and Travelocity Business in the past several weeks announced different expansion approaches, but each so far focuses more on serving current clients than signing new clients outside the United States.
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United, Sabre To Enable Point-Of-Sale Upselling
12.08.2008 - United Airlines and Sabre are working to enable the global distribution system's subscribers to upsell economy passengers to the carrier's Economy Plus cabin at the point of sale. Officials said the option would be available to Sabre-subscribing travel agencies in the first quarter of 2009.
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Profiles In Travel Management: UnitedHealth Adds Heavy Dose Of Travel Technology
12.08.2008 - UnitedHealth Group this year implemented a new online booking system in conjunction with pre-trip authorization and ticket tracking tools, which the company estimates, along with the three-year renewal of its travel management company contract with American Express Business Travel, would save several million dollars this year.In just 12 weeks, global travel and meetings manager Tamara Gordon led the Minneapolis-based health and insurance services provider's conversion from a 90 percent off-line booking environment to one with an 81 percent online adoption rate after implementing the Cliqbook self-booking tool.
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Inside Track: Bastian: Delta, Northwest Integration "On Track"
12.08.2008 - Delta Air Lines president Edward Bastian told investors this month that integration with newly acquired subsidiary Northwest Airlines is "fully on track and going well." He said 2009 would be a "transition year for us," noting that the carriers would not act as one entity until they are granted a single operating certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration, expected in late 2009.
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Newsmaker: Amadeus' David Jones Ascends To CEO Position
12.08.2008 - Amadeus commercial head David Jones on Jan. 1, 2009, will take on the role of president and CEO—filling the position held for 18 years by José Antonio Tazón, who is heading into retirement and a non-executive role as chairman of the Amadeus board.
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Washington Wire: IRS Lowers Mileage Reimbursement Rate
12.08.2008 - The U.S. Internal Revenue Service on Jan. 1, 2009, will lower its standard mileage rate to 55 cents per mile—3.5 cents less than the current rate, which the government raised mid-year amid escalating fuel prices.
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Qantas Eyes Corp. Demand, U.S. Access, Service Classes
12.08.2008 - Qantas Airways head of sales and distribution Rob Gurney spoke with BTN senior editor Jay Boehmer last month about Australian corporate demand, the impact of premium economy class seating on business travel and the effect of aircraft technology on the carrier's hope of serving U.S. interior points nonstop.
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Chains Reluctant To Follow Marriott On International E-Folio
12.08.2008 - Multinational travel managers are urging hotel chains to follow Marriott's lead in providing e-folio data at properties outside North America, although hoteliers said they still need to be persuaded it would be a worthwhile investment.
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Industry Vet Eric Danziger Returns To Head Wyndham
12.08.2008 - Wyndham Hotel Group has wooed lodging industry veteran Eric Danziger, a leader from the company's formative years, to return as its new chief executive.
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HRG Accelerating Efforts To Build Common Tech Platform
12.08.2008 - U.K.-based multinational travel management company HRG is refocusing its technology development efforts, redeploying resources and moving product upgrades up the priority list to accelerate its move to an enhanced, common technology platform.
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Amex Business Travel Taking Targeted Approach To Tech Investment
12.08.2008 - American Express Business Travel, amid a companywide cost-cutting initiative, is taking a more cautious technology investment approach by reducing non-client-facing staff and closing infrastructure gaps in its global standardized call center operations in emerging markets.
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Enterprise Again Dominates Car Rental Satisfaction Rankings
12.08.2008 - Travelers for the fifth year in a row rated Enterprise Rent-A-Car the best among rental car suppliers as overall satisfaction with the rental car industry continued to decline, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2008 Rental Car Satisfaction Study, released last month.
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Chauffeured Transportation Suppliers Enhance Online Booking
12.08.2008 - Several of the largest chauffeured transportation companies recently have launched or are working on updates to their online booking tools, promising better control over spending.
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New Dolce CEO To Further Conference Center Chain's Evolution
12.08.2008 - Conference center and hospitality company Dolce Hotels and Resorts has appointed former Wyndham Hotel Group CEO Steven Rudnitsky as its new president and CEO as the brand seeks significant expansion as well as a diversification of its customer base.
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Op-Ed: Travel Policy Restrictions Can't Ignore Corporate Liability
12.08.2008 - Calamitous economic times, coupled with the rising cost of business travel, have impelled many corporations to adopt more restrictive travel policies. Among the changes being implemented are requiring employees to schedule outbound and return flights on the same day—this to avoid the cost of a hotel stay—and requiring employees to rent cars and drive themselves to and from the airport rather than utilizing black car service. Such cost-cutting measures make for longer and more exhausting travel days, with the attendant risk to travelers who may find themselves behind the wheel of a car at the end of a 14-hour workday.
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Op-Ed: Price, Service, Quality: Pick Any Two For Travel Supplier Relationship Management
12.08.2008 - The corporate travel industry has seen a significant change in travel procurement, dating back to the decline and eventual elimination of airline commissions. When airline commissions were at their peak, the focus was on the percentage of the rebate travel agencies offered, with little regard for service or the quality of the associated travel products.
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BA, Qantas Explore Merger
12.08.2008 - British Airways this month confirmed merger discussions with Qantas Airways. BA in a statement said it is "exploring a potential merger with Qantas Airways Limited via a dual-listed company structure," but warned, "There is no guarantee that any transaction will be forthcoming and a further announcement will be made in due course, if appropriate."
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Benchmarking Europe's Biggest: Europe's Largest Globalizing, Taking Longer Trips
11.17.2008 - The second annual Business Travel News/Association of Corporate Travel Executives European benchmarking report builds on a baseline of data and provides a vivid snapshot of the travel buying and management habits of major corporations that each spend more than €20 million—and, in most cases, considerably more than that—annually on European-booked air travel alone.
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Benchmarking Europe's Biggest: After The Crash, Corporate Buyers' Perspective
11.17.2008 - Four travel buyers—Mark Avery, U.K. head of business services for PricewaterhouseCoopers; Bernadette Basterfield, international head of travel for JP Morgan Chase Bank, based in the United Kingdom; Else Marie Madsen, travel manager for Lego, based in Denmark; and Peter Sijbers, director of senior sourcing for airlines and corporate card for Philips, based in the Netherlands—met Business Travel News editor-in-chief David Meyer and contributing editor Amon Cohen at the Association of Corporate Travel Executives global conference in Rome last month to discuss possible responses to tough economic times: cutting back travel, encouraging smarter booking and reevaluating supplier relationships.
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TMCs See More Business As Buyers Extend, Expand, Re-Bid
11.17.2008 - Executives from some of the largest travel management companies recently told Business Travel News that they have seen a spike in competitive corporate account activity, whether it be to extend, expand or re-bid contracts.
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Consolidator Fares Pique Interest
11.17.2008 - Corporate travel buyers are reporting increased interest in consolidator fares, "wholesale" airline inventory often sold at a rate lower than published fares, but their use remains minimal and adoption does not come without some travel management pitfalls, show results of a Business Travel Coalition study released this month.
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Inside Track: Avis Budget Declines Majority Carey Stake
11.17.2008 - Avis Budget Group this month confirmed to Business Travel News that it has declined to increase its stake in chauffeured transportation provider Carey International to 80 percent from 45 percent. Avis Budget had one year to assume the majority stake following its initial $60 million October 2007 investment in Carey.
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Profiles In Travel Management: MMC Agency Consolidation Leads To Consultative Role
11.17.2008 - Marsh & McLennan this fall implemented a massive travel management company consolidation by reducing its TMC supplier base from 41 agencies to a single provider in little more than a year. After a late September implementation, BCD Travel handles nearly all the New York-based professional services firm's reservations in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, representing 80 percent of its $379 million global travel volume. MMC expects to add Europe by the end of the first quarter of 2009.
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WestJet Partners With Oneworld For Corporate Agreements
11.17.2008 - WestJet this month partnered with the Oneworld airline alliance to tailor joint corporate agreements and discounts for Canada-based companies. WestJet, which is the second-largest Canadian carrier after Star Alliance member Air Canada, stressed that it is not officially joining the alliance, and a Oneworld spokesperson said the deal does not include codeshare or interline agreements.
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German Corporate Travelers Lengthen Advance Air Bookings
11.17.2008 - German corporate travelers are booking flights further in advance of departure to take advantage of cheaper fares, especially in business class, according to figures from AirPlus International.
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Newsmaker: GetThere EMEA Gets Geall
11.17.2008 - GetThere this month announced the hiring of former Eurostar U.K. head of sales Jason Geall as its director of the Europe, Middle East and Africa division.
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Avion: Prism Data Use By Corporate Clients Grows In Europe
11.17.2008 - Fifteen of the largest corporate travel spenders, half based in Europe, have implemented Prism's seven-year-old Avion air data and contract management tool, and five of them have done so in the past two years.
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Hilton Taps Carlson Exec Rinck As Asia/Pac Head
11.17.2008 - Hilton Hotels Corp. has appointed a new leader for its Asia/Pacific operations as it aims to quickly multiply its presence across the region. Martin Rinck began duties as president of Hilton Hotels Asia/Pacific in the company's Singapore headquarters on Nov. 17, overseeing 50 Hilton-branded hotels, leases and franchises in the region.
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Infor Broadens Expense Tools
11.17.2008 - Expense reporting tool supplier Infor is expanding the availability of its tool, Infor Expense Management, as a software-as-a-service offering.
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UATP Eyes Hotels, Car Rental
11.17.2008 - Universal Air Travel Plan president and CEO Ralph Kaiser this month told Business Travel News that the payment network is exploring expanding its merchant network next year to include hotels and car rental vendors.
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Amex Survey: Corporate Travel Cost-Control Measures Ebb In China
11.17.2008 - Several cost-control measures on the upswing for the past several years in China have declined, according to American Express Business Travel's 2008 China Business Travel Survey, released last month.
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Qatar Airways Targeting U.S. Corporate Deals, Ramping Up Service
11.17.2008 - Qatar Airways is transitioning its New York-area services from Newark Liberty International Airport to JFK International Airport with the October launch of daily non-stop flights between New York and Qatari capital Doha. The airline, which also flies daily from Washington Dulles International Airport to Doha, is in the midst of carrying out an aggressive growth strategy. Next year, Qatar plans to launch Los Angeles-Doha service as well as new routes from several international cities.
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Op-Ed: Corp. Travel Needs Data Standards
11.17.2008 - Standardization is required to deliver added value to clients and streamline the provision of corporate travel services for the benefit of everyone in the industry.
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Op-Ed: Visibility: The Smart Way To Cut Travel Costs
11.17.2008 - The economy stinks. In this downturn, like others before it, frantic executives are calling for big cuts in travel. BTN recently reported "emergency travel cutbacks" and "travel freezes." The problem: In past recessions, when the economy inevitably cycled back upward, companies that axed travel may have regretted having cut too deep. Building client relationships and courting new customers—the reasons that we travel—are even more important when times are tough.
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Crisis Shakes Mtg. Contract Terms
10.20.2008 - Buyers may see conflicting attitudes from hotels regarding cancellation and attrition terms, with some properties more lenient to fill space but others anticipating a more volatile meetings market and trying to hold firm on their terms.
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Chauffeured Transport Hit By Financial Woes
10.20.2008 - Chauffeured transportation consultants and executives are anticipating or experiencing a noteworthy demand slowdown, especially in New York City, epicenter of the financial industry's continuing meltdown.
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Newsmaker: Amadeus Names Gutz COO
10.20.2008 - Amadeus North America this month announced the July appointment of former senior vice president of e-commerce Scott Gutz as COO, after he completed the yearlong Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan Fellows Program in Innovation and Global Leadership.
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Inside Track: OAG: Fourth-Quarter U.S. Air Capacity Cuts Steepen
10.20.2008 - The domestic airline market will lose nearly 11 percent of its flights and 9 percent of its available seats in the last three months of this year, compared with the same period last year, OAG said in a revised capacity analysis. OAG reported the United States will lose 21.4 million available seats in that timeframe. Several domestic carriers during third-quarter earnings calls this month said they could further scale back capacity next year if demand continues to deteriorate.
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Profiles In Travel Management: Motorola Mandates Using Meetings Team, Processes
10.20.2008 - Wireless equipment manufacturer Motorola last year developed a strategic meetings management program as part of a Six Sigma certification that resulted in mandating the use of its meetings team, a standard addendum and a meetings identification system.
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Washington Wire: DOT Expands NYC Air Auction Plans Despite Opposition
10.20.2008 - The U.S. Department of Transportation said it would proceed with its plan to auction some slots at the three major New York City-area airports, according to a final rule released this month, despite an Air Transport Association-led lawsuit and a ruling by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, that DOT does not have the legal authority to auction slots.
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BTN Research: Corporate Jet Supply Rising As Demand Appears To Decline
10.20.2008 - The business aviation market continued to set records in aircraft deliveries this year and is on target to surpass them again in 2009. However, an industry forecast released this month points to some weakening in demand among corporate flight department deployments of private aircraft.
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Recruitment Company Employs Managed Travel Techniques
10.20.2008 - CareerBuilder.com in June launched its first managed travel program by implementing a travel management company, a travel policy for its more than 2,500 employees and a preferred supplier program developed from an in-house sourcing effort.
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GetThere Changes Mobile Booking Plans As It Scraps Its Tech Partner
10.20.2008 - Online booking tool GetThere suspended its mobile booking plans after scrapping its relationship with mobile technology provider Usablenet this spring, according to GetThere vice president of product marketing and user experience Suzanne Neufang.
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Sonesta To Add U.S. Franchises
10.20.2008 - The upscale Sonesta International Hotels Corp. is on track to become a bigger player in the corporate travel market as it embarks on an aggressive growth plan, begins courting domestic franchising opportunities and readies for the launch of a new rewards program.
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Checking In: Slowdown Ahead For Asia/Pac Hotel Development Pipeline
10.20.2008 - The Asia/Pacific region should see 828 new hotels with 134,673 rooms open this year, with an additional 1,304 hotels with 311,203 rooms to open in the following two years, according to a pipeline report for the region that research firm Lodging Econometrics released this month.
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Rail Company Eurostar Slowly Progressing In Raising GDS Availability
10.20.2008 - Eurostar belatedly has achieved top-level distribution through global distribution systems in the United Kingdom and United States, but remains unavailable through GDSs in other countries.
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Op-Ed: End TMC Conflicts Of Airline Interest
10.20.2008 - Tough economic times for the airlines may turn out to improve the industry in ways not anticipated by either them or their "agents."
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Op-Ed: Corporate Customer Service Twist: Fees, Glorious Fees
10.20.2008 - In 1992, Congress declared the first week of October as "Customer Service Week." So we should have been feeling especially "served" this month! However, we now find an increasing number of hidden fees for travel services, and new ones being proposed daily. We need to look seriously at these fees and their effect on the negotiated value of the goods and services we purchase.
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Op-Ed: Meeting The Airport Customer Service Challenge
10.20.2008 - Over the next 10 years, airports in North America will invest billions of dollars in capital improvements and expansion plans to aid the growth of the air transport industry. Global trends in air traffic growth, increased investment and airport expansion and improvements provide fertile ground to grow North America travel and in turn will have a direct impact on the corporate travel industry.
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