tracking and safety, Dave White of International SOS, challenged delegates on why employee care often ceases beyond the office: “Do you do fire drills in your office twice a year? That's health and safety, but it shouldn't end when your travellers leave the office,“ he said. Geoff Allwright, head of travel and expenses
at Airbus UK, led the session on rail travel, where complexity of fares, transparency of fees, quality of data, rising fares and integration with European rail emerged as the big issues. The workshop covering data management
was led by Susan Hopley of TRX Europe, where each group was set the task of debating reporting processes, air data, hotel data or ancillary fees. The general consensus was that corporates were satisfied with their air and hotel data, but ancillary fees were tougher to tackle. Nikki Sutton, a buyer at Reed Elsevier, reported back from her group: “I'm passionate about data! Generally we're disappointed with our TMCs and question how we're supposed to aggregate the various sources of data. How do we make it accurate?“
A PORTILLO MOMENT Former Cabinet Minister Michael Portillo – now more familiar as a media pundit – regaled us with stories from his days in parliament before losing his seat in the 1997 election. These were
just some of the views he shared with the audience at TBTC 2010 as the keynote speaker, ending the two-day conference on a high. He dipped effortlessly between his views on the world of politics – from British transport policy to the new coalition government – to the sofa he shares with Diane Abbot on TV's This Week and his many adventures in travel. Portillo was cautiously optimistic on the global economy. “My belief is that we’ll still see economic growth although there are lots of questions about how strong this growth might be.” He cited the encouraging signs of sluggish recovery in the US and the most recent quarter results in the UK of 0.8 per cent, double the rate of growth most commentators expected. But he believes the coalition govern- ment’s level of cuts are impossible to achieve. He saved his ire for the government’s decision to scrap plans for a third runway at London Heathrow: “They are intensely wrong to rule out the third runway.” He was equally angry at how he and fellow travellers are treated by airport security staff. “They are loud-mouthed and insolent and they
“We can’t let unions run airlines. The stand that Willie Walsh made was historically important” Keynote speaker Michael Portillo
have to be stopped,” he announced. “You don’t need people shouting at you to take your laptop out of your bag.” He had good words to say about other aspects of airports however, namely Heathrow's “world class” T5 after its disappointing opening period, and of some airline chiefs. “What happened to British Airways in the strike is
a signal moment. We can’t let unions run airlines. The stand that Willie Walsh made was historically important.” Pleased to no longer be in politics, he is a happy business traveller. “Travel is still a glorious thing, even when there is a frisson of risk,” he said, before hopping on a Virgin Atlantic Limobike shortly afterwards for an evening departure from Heathrow.
A BIG THANKS TO…
Our thanks go to the TBTC 2010 venue, the Novotel London West, for providing great service and food throughout the event; our main sponsor, FCm Travel Solutions; our executive sponsors, SACO, Traveldoo, Concur, Omega World Travel and Virgin Atlantic; our party sponsor, CWT; and our 50-plus exhibitors.
18 I THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE 18 I THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE
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