Duty of Care
Duty of Care

Duty of care: 24/7 support in a crisis

Client

Global Provider of Engineered Products and Services to the Oil and Gas Industry.

1641390489222
Zara Higgins

General Manager, Scotland

e: zara.higgins@atpi.com

Discover how ATPI’s duty of care solution supported a client during a dramatic travel crisis in which a plane was taken hostage.

Duty of Care

Our client is a global provider of engineered products and services to the oil and gas industry. They work across the world, around the clock, to support their clients to optimise their efficiency and ensure the performance, reliability and safety of critical equipment and people. Their employees require safe travel and a superior level of duty of care from their travel provider. On 29th March 2016, an Egypt Air flight en-route from Cairo to London Heathrow was hijacked. Our client had one of their employees on board who was taken as a hostage.

The Challenge

As soon as ATPI Energy Travel was aware of the incident via its alerts system, a report for all travellers was immediately run to establish if any passengers had been affected.

One ‘Passenger Name Record’ (PNR) belonging to a client serviced by our operation was highlighted.

The challenge was to keep all parties informed and to maintain the safety of the passenger, ensuring he returned home safely.

Whilst on board the hijacked plane and during the hostage situation, the traveller called ATPI’s dedicated out of hours service, advising of the ongoing situation and to advise that he was safe.

As the situation developed, the flight was diverted to Larnaca where the aircraft was met by armed security personnel.

The hostage situation was subsequently peacefully resolved with the hijacker surrendering to the authorities.

The Solution: Duty of Care

As all bookings via ATPI Marine & Energy are made through a single global technology platform, a report was instantly made available of all clients that could be potentially impacted by this hijacking, so that affected clients could be alerted.

As soon as the client was identified, ATPI Marine & Energy worked quickly to establish the safety of the passenger. Firstly, for his own safety, he was advised to terminate the phone call whilst on board the hijacked aircraft.

The dedicated account manager called the client to start the approved internal protocols. The third party security company, based in Cyprus, then contacted the UK Foreign Office to advise that a UK Citizen was on the hijacked aircraft.

Eventually, the passenger was one of the last to be released. The client’s third party security and repatriation provider completed initial checks and took the client to The British High Commission in Nicosia.

ATPI Marine and Energy’s dedicated account manager, operations team leader, and 24/7 team worked with the client to ensure that the passenger returned to the UK safely.

The out-of-hours telephone number that the client called from the aeroplane transfers straight to UK based ATPI travel consultants available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

The Result

Fortunately, this hijacking was not organised by a terrorist organisation but was an isolated case by a lone wolf. The supportive and efficient relationship between ATPI Marine & Energy, the third-party security provider, and the client worked rapidly to get the passenger home and the out-of-hours service received positive feedback from the client.

The incident demonstrated the need for an agreed professional and effective Duty of Care programme that can be deployed instantly and has buy-in from all levels of the organisation.  For instance, if the travel manager had not been available at the time, other stakeholders within the organisation would need to be aware of the process, and be able to escalate it internally if another emergency occurred. It also highlighted the need to ensure that all travellers are aware of the procedure in a crisis and to continually update it so that it covers all eventualities.

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