Airline joint venture contracts take off

Posted in Blog, The Wire by AirPlus Editor
Tags: airline joint ventures, The Wire

Travel managers see both advantages and disadvantages to working with airline joint ventures.

As increasing numbers of airline joint ventures continue to enter the marketplace, the navigation of airline contracts is changing. Such joint ventures – in which airlines share codes and revenues, as well as capacity, scheduling, pricing and frequent flier programs (e.g. the Delta – Air France – KLM – Alitalia joint venture) – have introduced a new world of contract negotiations in which a corporation may be required to contract with all partners in a joint venture rather than with individual airlines.

While the negotiating process may be eased with one point of contact and one contract for multiple allied carriers, new challenges have also been introduced, such as reduced capacity and the potential of less pricing flexibility.

Of the 120 corporate travel managers surveyed by AirPlus in the winter of 2012, 46 percent have already contracted with a joint venture, while another 22 percent are considering doing so. However, approximately one-third of the respondents (32 percent) say they have not contracted with a joint venture and are not even considering it.

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Millennial Business Travelers

Posted in Blog, The Wire by AirPlus Editor
Tags: Millennials, The Wire, travel management, Travel Management Study

Corporate travel managers might be missing opportunities to connect with Millennials.

As Millennial workers—loosely defined as 21 to 30 years old—continue to enter the workplace, traditional management is struggling to figure out how this new generation fits into the workforce and what accommodations need to be made for them.

In February, AirPlus brought those questions to nearly 100 corporate travel managers, drilling down to assess how Millennial travelers compare to other generations in the workforce when it comes to travel policy compliance and how corporate travel managers are responding to these young employees.

The majority of corporate travel manager respondents—56 percent—have not looked at compliance rates by age. Surprisingly, those who have looked at the data report conflicting results: 11 percent say they have data that compliance rates are the same among differing age groups while 5 percent say they have data that Millennials are more compliant
and 4 percent say they have data that Millennials are less compliant. A similar split is seen among those who have not done hard research: 11 percent suspect Millennials are more compliant and 12 percent suspect Millennials are less compliant.

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Meetings Payment

Posted in Blog, The Wire by AirPlus US Team
Tags: meetings management, payment solutions, The Wire

Meeting planners value payment solutions that offer detailed data and streamline processes.

As corporations grapple with integrating meetings management into a comprehensive travel management program, the area of payment strategies has met great change. The consensus is that data drives smart policy and supplier decisions; but, the decision to move to models that provide the best data has been slow.

In January AirPlus asked about preferred methods of payment for meeting expenses excluding air and separately about preferred method of payment for air expenses associated with corporate meetings. With the exception of a lodged/central bill method, which was popular for both categories of spend, travel professional responses showed that payment for attendees’ air travel was handled quite differently from other meeting expenses.

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