Business eye
Sabre and Polycom sign video-conferencing deal
TRAVEL IT COMPANY SABRE TRAVEL NETWORK has launched a global reservation system for video-conferencing. Under a new agreement, Sabre will combine its global reservation platform with the video-conferencing and telepresence services of Polycom. Sabre Virtual Meetings will go live in the first half of this year, providing
facilities at either public HD video-conferencing rooms or at private ones run by individual companies. The new facility will allow corporates to find suitable rooms, reserve and use them for virtual meetings. The booking system will be available for use on self-booking tools or TMC systems, enabling either company employees or their agents to make the reservations. It will allow buyers to assess facilities at chosen locations and review the competing rates. The system will also be open to multiple telecom and video-conferencing providers. Sabre said it was the first reservation system of its kind and claimed
it would “increase the adoption and use of corporate-owned video- conferencing solutions” and deliver a faster return-on-investment on this type of equipment. It would also increase the use of public video- conferencing rooms, such as those provided by Regus.
Troubled Kingfisher’s Oneworld launch date confirmed
FEBRUARY SEES ONEWORLD BECOME the first airline alliance to officially welcome an Indian airline. The joining ceremony is due to take place on February 10. Bruce Ashby, Oneworld’s CEO, said Kingfisher Airlines will expand the alliance’s network “substantially” with the addition of 40 destinations on the subcontinent, a “key region of growing travel demand”. Kingfisher Airlines chairman Vijay Mallya said becoming part of Oneworld “will enable us to offer our customers a truly global network served by partners who include some of the best known and most admired airlines in the world,” he said. “It will also strengthen us financially,
through revenues from passengers transferring to our network from our Oneworld partners and the cost reduction opportunities the alliance offers.” Air India was in the process of becoming part of Star Alliance, but this was put on hold in the summer of 2011 after it failed to meet the group’s standards. Oneworld will also welcome Air Berlin and Malaysia Airlines to the fold in 2012. As Buying Business Travel went to press, Kingfisher had 15 of its fleet grounded amid reports of cash problems. In November the airline reported Q3 losses of £58 million, double the losses for the same period the previous year.
News
Do more with less, meeting planners told
WHILE THE OVERALL BUDGET for meetings is expected to increase in 2012, organisers will be expected to keep costs down. According to a new survey of meetings suppliers, planners and bookers by American Express Meetings and Events, meetings will also have fuller agendas and will take place closer to home. In a bid to keep costs down, the number of attendee per meeting is thought to see a downward trend, as will the number of days, Amex’s Global Meetings Forecast predicts.
ARIK AIR RESTARTS LONDON-ABUJA LINK AND EXPANDS
The survey results were
also broken down into regions, with 51 per cent of European meetings planners seeing signs of increased activity. This figure is relatively
high, compared to 57 per cent in Asia , 50 per cent in Latin America and just 42 per cent in North America. In Europe, 62 per cent of meetings will take place in large cities and 12 per cent in smaller cities. Some 26 per cent will shift from primary to second-tier cities. n Q&A with UK Amex boss Anthony Drury, p40
All-business to Hong Kong
REGIONAL FLIGHTS NIGERIA’S ARIK AIR has recommenced flights between London Heathrow and Abuja, since December flying daily between the two capitals using a B737-800 aircraft in a two-class configuration (16 in business, 126 in economy). The airline had discontinued its five-times- weekly Abuja-London service in October 2010 without giving a reason, after serving the route since 2009.
Michael Arumemi-Ikhide, Arik Air’s CEO, thanked the British and Nigerian governments for “coming to agreeable terms which increases the capacity in to and out of Nigeria”. December also saw Arik launch the Savannah Express – twice-weekly, two-class regional services linking Senegal capital Dakar to three destinations: Benin’s largest city Cotonou; Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou; and Bamako, the capital of Mali. In the same month the airline started twice weekly flights between Lagos and
HONG KONG AIRLINES HOPES its new all-business class flights between London Gatwick and Hong Kong will capture the interest of business travel buyers. Gerard Clarke, Hong Kong
Airlines’ UK country manager, said the new offering had been developed with two key business customers in mind: “One is the top-end corporate markets, the banking community, legal profession and insurance sector. The second group is the SME market. China is becoming increasingly important for that group, so we will give them the option of travelling into Hong Kong and making a very convenient connection into China from there.” The two financial capitals are
Gerard Clarke
Angolan capital Luanda, which Arumemi-Ikhide described as a strategically important destination for the oil and gas industry. “These routes mark the end to years of limited air links between Nigeria and the respective countries,” he said. “They comes at a time when the Economic Community of West African States [ECOWAS] is seeking closer relations among countries in the region.” Arik Air also flies daily between Heathrow and Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city.
currently directly linked by some five airlines, but the Chinese carrier hopes to be able to offer something different, by offering two business- class experiences on board: in Club Classic there will be 82 cradle seats, configured 2-2-2, with a pitch of 51 inches and a width of 22 inches; and in Club Premier, there will be 34 suites with fully flat beds, configured 1-2-1. It will operate flights between Hong Kong and London with A330-200 aircraft. The daily service is due to start on March 8.
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