ATP - The Advanced Travel Partner

About ATP

Following the events of August 10th 2006 when there was a sudden and drastic change in the security levels at all of the UK's airports, Adam Knights - ATP Sales Director - reviews the complex mechanisms that spring into place at such times.

For anyone who has been working in travel for the last five years the amount of change has been almost inconceivable. The events of 10th August, along with the five year anniversary of 9/11, really brought home to me how much we as an industry have developed in our management of major security events. Inevitably I have mixed emotions; it is incredibly inspiring to see everyone in the organisation move in harmony to execute a well structured recovery plan. It's just a sad reflection on today's world that we have had so much experience of dealing with these issues.

Early morning start
The process began, as any other day, with several key members of the ATP team checking the news media first thing in the morning as well as reviewing the activities of the 24 hour team to identify overnight developments.
On Thursday 10th of August it was clear from around 6am that there was a security issue affecting all UK airports. The sales support team automatically began to prepare a HiFlyers alert. Naturally, at these early stages, we were simply lifting information from the major news organisations and as HiFlyers aims to add more detail than simply repeating these points,?? some time was spent communicating with our contacts at the relevant suppliers, looking for practical solutions as opposed to attention grabbing headlines.
If the decision has been made to issue a HiFlyers, once it is ready either myself or another Director will assess the situation to ensure we are communicating the right information to the right people - on some occasions a HiFlyers is inappropriate if the number of affected travellers is small, localised to a single airline or geographic region. On 10th August the HiFlyer alert was authorised almost immediately and hit most desktops at around 9:05am. After two more updates had been sent it was decided to add a HiFlyers button to our website home page so that a constant stream of information could be communicated without overloading inboxes.

Not just information but solutions
At the same time as the sales team is working on communicating the issues, the operations team is working on solutions. A staggered management system means that the first operations manager can be in the office from as early as 7am and begin the process of finding solutions. A series of reports are produced to identify the scale of response required, these can be produced centrally but also locally on each managers desktop to speed up the process.
By the time the first HiFlyers notification arrived at your PC on 10th August attempts were well underway to contact the earliest travellers and divert them to alternative routes. Many Paris and Brussels bound travellers were redirected to the Eurostar, although by mid-morning this was booked solid (one of the benefits of moving quickly!) Longhaul passengers may have chosen to delay their flight or possibly re-route to depart from a smaller regional airport.

Practicing what we preach
My morning schedule was, as you would expect, completely ruined but to avoid a security nightmare we were able to alter my colleague's planned return flight from Heathrow to a Norwich departure which allowed for a relatively civilised meeting on the train to Norwich.
Most of our clients, although inevitably inconvenienced, found their problems were 'headed off at the pass' by the extremely thorough efforts of a team of unsung heroes who go to enormous lengths to make sure our clients aren't the ones sitting in a marquee outside Heathrow's Terminal 2 for six hours. When the ATP team rise to occasions like this it makes my sales role much easier, who could deny the value of travel management companies in these situations? More...

Adam Knights
Sales Director

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Jeremy King
Head of Marketing
ATP The Advanced Travel Partner
10 Leake St
London
SE1 7NN
Tel: +44 (0) 870 990 6900
Fax: +44 (0) 207 803 3055
Mob: +44 (0) 776 525 4550
E-mail: jeremy.king@atpi.com

Beverley Allen
Tel: 01525 716745
Mob: 07952 234292
Mob: +44 (0) 776 525 4550
E-mail: beverley.allenpr@aol.com

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