Cirium's Damar Christopher believes communication must improve to help streamline the management of unused tickets
The coronavirus pandemic has had a huge impact
on the entire travel economy, the likes of which we have not seen before.
It is without doubt one of the biggest market
shocks to the travel sector, but it also represents a catalyst for long overdue
innovation. If the industry is to emerge from its current paralysed state,
travel providers need to challenge the status quo and identify the gaps in
their operations.
The ticketing process is one such area that has
been ripe for change for over a decade.
During times of disruption, airlines around
the world issue waivers to cover the cost of cancelled tickets that impact their
corporate travellers.
Under normal circumstances, waivers are issued
due to the likes of extreme weather conditions or other unforeseen disruption,
such as strikes or technical issues on aircraft. While in these circumstances the effect on
business travellers is inconvenient and often frustrating, the fallout for the
corporate travel sector is manageable.
For major disruption events like the
coronavirus pandemic, however, it’s a very different story. A flood of
available waivers enters agents’ systems almost overnight, and the coronavirus
pandemic is causing a tidal wave unlike anything we’ve seen before. And corporates
shouldn’t assume that their travel management company is managing this flood
effectively.
In principle, the creation of waivers is good
news for TMCs and their clients, but the reality is corporate travel chaos.
Once an airline cancels a ticket, it can no longer be monitored as a live trip –
nor matched to qualifying waivers. This long-standing technology gap has been exposed
and exacerbated by the pandemic.
Our data shows that at the peak of
cancellations, between 30 March and 30 April 2020, more than 170 waivers were active
globally, covering more than 900 airports around the world. On 27 April alone, 922
airports were covered by 83 pandemic-specific active waivers.
This swell of policy exceptions has overloaded
the inboxes of travel agencies everywhere and the timing couldn’t be worse.
As Covid-19 poses questions about the
long-term future of business travel, corporates are sitting with millions in
unused tickets waiting on their TMC to process each one.
This is because corporate travel managers have
to manually match individual tickets to an applicable waiver. Only at this
stage can they request a refund or continuously track that ticket to be applied
to a future booking.
Without getting a handle on the potentially
huge hidden cost of unused tickets, demand within the corporate travel industry
can never fully recover.
There are four areas of communication that
need to change:
• Ticket and booking information shared between a
corporation and the agency processing the ticket (all indirect channels).
• Updates to tickets between systems from
airlines to agency to corporation.
• Outstanding costs between airlines and
corporation.
• Trip information updates, such as the status
on cancelled flights, for the traveller.
Each broken link in the communication chain is
dependent on data management. Automating how this information is shared
requires structured data, so where do companies start?
First, the industry has to share data, putting
aside concerns about who gets what – and trust that the mutual benefit will outweigh
individual needs. It’s about partnering for change.
For example, we’re
currently inviting some corporate clients of our TMC customers to take part in
a beta test to analyse applicable waivers for unused tickets.
Our initial analysis
is aimed at identifying details of waivers that may be applicable for matching
to a cancelled ticket, which cancelled tickets may be eligible
for refunds and
how this data can be shared more easily by TMCs to help
process refunds.
We believe this innovation is what the
corporate travel sector desperately needs to transform the waiver-matching
process and uncover hidden disruption costs.
Airlines too will benefit from putting these unused
ticket funds back into use.
At a time when carriers are under pressure to
provide refunds and flexible future travel options, waivers should offer a
welcome means of encouraging rebooking among those who fly for business.
It is only by removing barriers to waiver
redemption that we can relieve pressure on airline customer service teams,
already strained from navigating cancellations and booking changes.
The travel and tourism industry is estimated
to be worth US$10 trillion globally. What’s not quantifiable are the countless
lost hours and resources spent handling calls from TMCs, seeking refunds for
clients on cancelled business trips during COVID-19.
We all want to see business travellers take to
the skies again. But our industry first needs to collaborate to banish the
time-poor and labour-intensive process of manual waiver-matching for good.
If we want to get the corporate travel sector back
on its feet and protect this vital revenue stream for airlines in the future,
we must address the technology gap at the heart of the problem.