ACCORDING TO AMON
WORDS AMON COHEN
WHO WINS A ‘GIT’ THIS YEAR?
Gongs In Travel mark the worst trends in a totally biased, highly judgemental fashion
T
OP UP YOUR GOLDFISH BOWL of artisan gin and settle back in your La-Z-Boy power recliner: it’s time for my annual GITs, or Gongs In Travel, the utterly biased and manifestly unreasonable
awards absolutely no one wants gracing their mantelpiece.
The John Smith Souvenir Tankard for Most Common Name in Business Travel WINNER: Doug Anderson
I know three: one who worked for Portman Travel, the one who ran CWT and then Amex GBT, and one at SAP Concur. If you’ve spotted any other Doug Andersons, do write in.
The Bonne Maman Jar for Putting Jam on the Cohen Family Table in 2019 RUNNERS-UP: Wellbeing and Sustainability WINNER: Brexit Brexit has been a bit of a dilemma for me. On the one hand, I’m an ardent Remainer, believing Brexit to be bad for business and for travel. On the other hand, I’ve trousered a tidy sum (and even an award of my own) for explaining what it all means – several times over thanks to repeated delays in our depar- ture. My profound thanks to David Cameron, Nigel Farage, Jeremy Corbyn, John Bercow and too many others to mention.
Fyffe Banana Skins Cup for Biggest Transport Cock-up of the Year RUNNER-UP: Berlin Brandenburg International Airport WINNER: Crossrail Berlin’s white elephant has scooped this award annually since failing to open in 2011 but, with rumours it might actually start operations in 2020, The airport finally cedes its crown to a UK rival. I assumed Crossrail
was so named because it traversed London. Now it’s clear it’s because an overrun of three years and £3.5 billion is making pretty much everyone absolutely furious.
Best New Scandinavian Word of the Year WINNER: Flygskam If 2018 was all about hygge, 2019 was the year of flygskam, or “flight shame”. I thought this meant the embarrassment experienced on emerging from a 15-minute visit to the only functioning toilet on a Ryanair aircraft to find 20 angry fellow passengers queuing down the aisle. Now I know differently.
The Sir Elton John “I’m Still Standing” Vase WINNER: Alitalia In a year which saw the actual or heralded demise of, among others, the Airbus A380, Thomas Cook (admittedly more than 20 years after exiting business travel), Jet Airways, single-use plastic, hotel toiletry bottles and any number of UK TMCs in a frenzy of consolidation, Italy’s perenially troubled flag carrier managed (at time of writing) to struggle on. Alitalia is currently faring so badly that Italy’s national rail oper- ator has been brought in to find a buyer.
Amon Cohen is a specialist
business travel writer, conference moderator and media trainer
EMOTIONAL SUPPORT ANIMALS HAVE
INCLUDED A PEACOCK, A KANGAROO AND A MINIATURE HORSE CALLED FLIRTY
The TikTok Ornamental Snowflake WINNER: “Emotional support” animals on flights This is the US-led phenomenon of over- pampered people insisting their pet flies with them for the sake of their (the owners’) wellbeing, regardless of the distress caused to fellow passengers or the bewildered animals. Emotional support animals have included a peacock, a kangaroo, a turkey and a miniature horse called Flirty.
Best Purveyor of Mystery Tours WINNER: British Airways British Airways, you will recall, landed an aircraft in Edinburgh not Dusseldorf, as ad- vertised. When the mistake made the news, Ryanair issued a mocking tweet – that’s the airline that used to fly to Malmo, Sweden, and call it Copenhagen.
64 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020
buyingbusinesstravel.com
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