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RAIL AIRLINES


Rail refunds for 15-min delays


RAIL PASSENGERS WILL SOON BE ABLE TO CLAIM COMPENSATION if their train is more than 15 minutes late under an improved compensation scheme announced by the Department for Transport. ‘Delay Repay 15’ will be introduced within months on Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) services, including Southern, and then rolled out across the country. Passenger and rail industry groups have supported the plans.


The new compensation thresholds are: 25 per cent of the single fare for delays of 15 to 29 minutes; 50 per cent of the single fare for delays of 30 to 59 minutes; 100 per cent of the single fare for delays of 60 minutes to 119 minutes; and 100 per cent of the total ticket cost (including if it is a return) for delays of two hours or more. After being introduced on GTR services, it will be rolled out across the network starting with the new South Western, West Midlands and South Eastern franchises. A spokesman for the Rail Delivery Group, which represents train companies, said: “We know that every minute counts for passengers and we understand the argument for wanting to start the compensation clock ticking earlier, especially for commuters.”


AWARDS Emirates president Tim Clark AIRLINES PRIORITISE


DIGITAL STRATEGY AIRLINE BOSSES HAVE STRESSED the “crucial” importance of digital strategy for the health of their businesses.


The chiefs of Emirates,


IAG and Easyjet were speaking at the Global Aviation Festival in London. Easyjet CEO Carolyn


BBT celebrates awards success


BUYING BUSINESS TRAVEL CELEBRATED A SUCCESSFUL NIGHT at the Business Travel Journalism Awards 2016, winning five prestigious trophies at the annual event, which was hosted by BBC presenter Bill Turnbull. The awards collected by BBT were Business Travel Editorial


Team of the Year, Business Travel Editor of the Year – Paul Revel, Best Digital Strategy – Tom Newcombe, Responsible Business (CSR) Journalist of the Year – Rob Gill and Features Journalist of the Year (Industry Trends) – Catherine Chetwynd. BBT’s sister title Business Traveller also collected four awards during the evening. Julian Gregory, managing director of Panacea, which owns both BBT and Business Traveller, said: “I am delighted to see our editorial teams and freelance writers recognised by the industry for their hard work, creativity and talent.” The Business Travel Journalism Awards is organised by Carlson Wagonlit Travel, and judged by an independent panel of industry experts.


10 BBT November/December 2016


McCall said that, when thinking about digital strategy, “we don’t see ourselves as an airline, but as an e-commerce platform. The fact that we have half a billion visits to our digital channels gives us an enormous amount of data and contacts.” She said it was important to avoid using customer data in “a haphazard or irritating way”. Emirates president Tim Clark said his ‘digital disruption group’ had spent several months examining every company process in “very granular detail”, and is now looking to redesign processes on new platforms, which could “streamline 50 per cent of what we do”. He said: “This has


implications for the workspace and the workforce. It will take cost out of the business and it will allow us to be more efficient.” Clark predicted Emirates would move to a new “open


architecture” platform in the next five years, which he believes will be driven by ‘blockchain technology’ – the ‘distributed database’ technology that underpins and records all Bitcoin transactions. This technology offers more instant, ‘real-time’ access to data, allowing the airline to “do many things in a more rapid, meaningful, focused fashion, to get the value you need – whether that’s consumer or supplier interaction”. Clark added that Emirates has been working with the Oxford University mathematics faculty to test its yield management algorithms – “to make sure the distribution, use of inventory and pricing is optimising the yield”. He added: “Digital disruption, whether it be in the airline business or any other business, is staring us in the face – ignore it at your peril.” IAG boss Willie Walsh said that, like Emirates, the airline group has created an internal digital disruption team. “The way we looked at this was there are people out there looking to disrupt our business, so we should look to disrupt our own business, for our own benefit,” he said.


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