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UK airport chaos could divert business travel away
A significant amount of business travel could be routed to other European cities due to congestion and delays at the UK’s busiest airports, according to a new study.
Eighty percent of multinational companies participating in the poll are anticipating airport meeting travel to go elsewhere, such as Frankfurt or Amsterdam.
Sixty per cent of respondents to the research by the Association of Corporate Travel Executives blamed outdated facilities, volume of traffic and poorly conceived security measures for the delays at British airports.
More than half (60%) are considering “demand management,” a process by which travel alternatives are used to reduce internal corporate travel. The remaining 40% have not resorted to this tough measure yet but are considering it.
ACTE introduced the concept of demand management as a potential travel alternative last spring. The practice uses the latest technology to link laptops and desktop computers for real time teleconferencing.
The ACTE research was conducted by an informal polling session of senior travel managers in the UK in the last week of August.
ACTE executive director Susan Gurley is called on the business travel industry to put airport congestion at the top of its agenda.
“It’s time for key segments of the travel management industry to work together and try to reach a consensus on airport congestion,” she said. “There may be no better time than the Leadership Summit at the ACTE Munich Conference in October.
“Whether the problem is with access roads, outdated infrastructure, parking or security, the issues have to be treated as simultaneous priorities. In addition, from a CSR perspective, the quantity of resources being consumed while waiting is staggering. Time and resources cannot be easily recovered once spent.”
ACTE’s Global Education Conference on October 21-23 will combine communications technology, expense tracking techniques, and advanced travel management strategy-building in one programme.
Simultaneously, world leaders and industry authorities will be meeting in a European Travel Summit, to resolve issues like congestion, as well as security matters and service concerns.
by Phil Davies
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