IN FOCUS


WORDS MAT THEW PARSONS


OLIFE THE


THER ON


NEED FOR SPEED Usually it’s the first salvage company that arrives on the scene that wins the job, so it’s important to be there as quickly as possible. For 90 per cent of salvage jobs, travel will involve last-minute bookings, and Ardent will direct the salvage team to the airport even before the flights are booked. Our TMC BCD Travel provides a good 24-hour service.


ON CALL


Due to the nature of the role, we rarely know where we are travelling until the last minute, so I simply have two bags: one for hot countries, the other for cold countries. On average, I’ll be travelling somewhere each week.


PEOPLE POWER


I started as a chief engineer for Wijsmuller in 1977 and have spent the past 20 years in salvage. As well as responding to incidents, wreck removal and offshore decommis- sioning, Ardent deals with emergency preparedness so I travel for inspections and training. I have to admit I dislike the travelling aspect, but do enjoy working with different people.


Huib Ouwehand is a salvage officer at Ardent, a specialist in marine salvage. He travels worldwide, often at short notice, to attend emergencies, remove wrecks and decommission offshore facilities


WORLDWIDE REACH The work is varied. Each incident is differ- ent; but always challenging, no matter the size of the emergency. We work all around the world, so there are no specific destina- tions, but more incidents happen in winter and in times of bad weather, and container ship fires are occurring more frequently.


BORDER CONTROL As we’re often flying out somewhere to help protect the environment, the country’s authorities tend to help out so we can arrive as soon as possible. But the world is chang- ing and over the past of couple of years I’ve noticed visa requirements become stricter. We have to be sharp, and have the team prepared with emergency entry visas. Fortunately, we have a good visa office in the Netherlands, and arrangements are prepared in advance for several countries.


LOCAL FACTOR


While our crewing manager and BCD Travel organise flights, we also use local agents for local transport (with the help of BCD). BCD Travel also deals with our car rental. As a result, we are quite close with the BCD booking team; we call, email, they will always give us the best and quickest options to arrive at the incident as soon as possible. We also liaise with ISOS for hotel bookings. n For more information, visit: ardentglobal.com


10


NOVEMBER/DECEMBER


2019


buyingbusinesstravel.com


SIDE


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