WESSCO International’s Post

Cultivating effective airline relationships is a crucial for success for many travel advisors. In my latest thought leadership feature for Travel Weekly, I explore how travel advisors build productive relationships with their airline partners. (Created in partnership with Lufthansa)

Jetstar Airways will turn 20 years on 25 May 2004! Those two-decades have.. sorry.. flown! A day & a subsequent period that transformed Australian aviation this century. Yes, also arguably a period around the Sydney Olympics when we had a 4-domestic brand & operating airline market & the kickstart of Virgin Blue. This set a scene for increased airline competition, seat capacity growth, new routes to the regional tourism hotspots & consumer choice from the past duopolistc two-airline policy. After the seismic dual impacts of Ansett’s initial collapse in the same week as the 9/11 terror events in September 2001, inside 3 years our local aviation market, today still one of the world’s most sustainable, safe & profitable, was turned up & about. Jetstar’s launch, from an aggressive 14-destination, 14 aircraft operation, was the world’s largest first day airline launch! Initially a dozen plus routes from day dot, with an initial fleet of the former Impulse Airlines introduced baby Boeing 717s. It followed the Feb 2004 biggest ever one day fare sale inc. actual volume - $29 one way all online! Whilst I can still recall Day 1 - it saw myself and the team inc. Simone Pregellio & Love Communications at the time spread completely across all our first-day mkts - even Proserpine - aka Whitsunday Coast Airport From recollection I moved between Melbs, Sydney, Gold Coast, Brisbane & crashed at a 3-star SYD Mascot hotel @ 230am the following morning overseeing our Corporate & Public Affairs delivery. Feom Geoff Dixon’s vision, the innovative, driven leadership of Alan Joyce, commercial brains of Bruce Buchanan & David Koczkar, & an operational smarts of so many inc. Mark Dal Pra John Gissing Susan Young Rohan W Garnett Bill Jauncey Gerry Turner Minna Monaghan Rachael Stewart (& sorry too many others to name) - JQ initially had a Aussie East-Coast focus. Helping drive our expansion with Unni Menon, was always rewarding. A desire under a 2-brand strategy to win back the Gold Coast for the Qantas Group, let alone make Tassie flying sustainable & build fast markets out of Newcastle, Avalon & Cairns and make Hamilton Island affordable to the suburbs. So many stories, some big consumer-related issues to manage, from a free seating model, the problem of initially carrying malibus 🏄♀️, to crayfish & pets flying ex Tassie, curfew busters ex Sydney & some infamous wheelchair & pet mat events. And yet a future of franchising out of a series of Asian locations, by volume Australia’s 3rd largest serving int’l airline, entrenching the Dreamliner & A320 family into QF & seeing off competitors inc. OzJet, Tiger Air & Bonza A key reason today why a record number of Aussie flyers flop in Bali & NZ! From ‘the pool room’ a parting gift in 2011 from the crew. Yes I’ve aged, I don’t look good in ties & every new air route launch needs a cake & a water cannon greeting! A once in a lifetime work moment. #aviation #jetstar #qantas #visitoreconomy #team #career

The devil is always in the detail right? Luckily we are the travel experts so you don't have to be ;) #fcmtravel #businesstravel #corporatetravel #travelknowledge #businessclass #luxuarytravel #appleswithapples

Exaxctly 6 years ago I introduced Sarosh Waghmar to the world of airline conferences as he joined me as a guest at the CAPA - Centre for Aviation Airline Leader Summit at the wonderful Powerscourt Hotel Resort & Spa in Ireland Back then Sarosh was the CEO and founder of WTMC, a small New York based TMC for SMB customers, and he had learned the hard way how customers were starting to value innovative travel tech higher than personal service touch - after he lost a few key customers when American Express aquired Mezi (acquired by American Express) in early 2018 and ended usage of the service shortly after During the 2 days together in Ireland we discused how the travel industry needed a new operating system designed to support and foster open innovation at a much faster pace than before, while also creating a new direct connection between the travel buyer and seller The panel I was moderating consisted of Sarosh, Michael Tangney (the Google global TM at the time), Xavier Lagardere (head of distribution for Lufthansa Group back then) and Pedro Renaud Anderson (founder and COO for Winding Tree) and we had a great discussion about the need for modern technology to enter the travel distribution world in the near future - and some of those "crazy ideas" from back then are now becomng product reality At the end of the conference Sarosh and I shared a ride back to Dublin Airport, and during this 90 minutes ride the foundation of the Spotnana project was created - I was fascinated by Sarosh's passion for finding a way to deliver a better travel experience to the corporate buyer and ended up agreeing to help get a new business started when possible - and today, 6 years later, I am so proud and honered to be part of the Spotnana journey and see how far we have come But I also remember a number of ideas and capabilites we discussed back then which we haven't even started developing yet, so there is still a very long road ahead of us before the "Dublin Airport Ride Vision" has become a reality Some people seem to think that Spotnana already has reached the end of the disruption road, but knowing Sarosh and remembering the conversations we had back then I can assure you we have only just started Great things take a long time to build, and while Spotnana obviously have achieved some amazing milestones already - the hard reality is that we only have "scratched the surface" in terms of changing how corpoate travel works. But, in Sarosh's own words, "someone has to clean the gutter" and we have now replaced the old plumbing and are ready to start building the new house on top of a #cloudnative #travelasaservice platform designed from day one to enable development and launch of new services which quite simply are impossible to deliver via the old travel tech stack Every time somebody tells me "it can't be done" I think back to that event in 2018 - and remember how Sarosh promised me to build #traveltopia as his next project - and how far we have come 😀

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The travel saga. Lufthansa long haul business class seats (I have never been a fan) and I'm now calling them "Spooning Seats." I flew US to Europe to China - partly because of the lack of flights from the US and partly because I'll be in Europe after China. ✈️ So Cleveland- NY - Milan on United and an overnight in a lovely bnb there (I never book 2 separately purchased tickets without a 24 hour buffer). United has a really nice seat configuration in business class. They're pods, so you have privacy and room to spread out. Service is often snarky - passengers are annoying if we don't conform to their style of service & pace. ✈️ Milan - Frankfurt - Hong Kong on Lufthansa. I've flown LH before to Asia and don't like their biz seats, but this time I realized that besides the fact they are narrow, no privacy when your sitting up, and little padding - there's the intimacy issue. They have two seats angled towards each other when reclined. Like a pizza slice. Where the passengers feet meet there's a small divider on the foot rest - but from ankles to the waist the seats touch with no divider. The nice man next to me was a side sleeper (me too), and alternating between his knees over on my side up against my knees or his knees bent into the back of my knees (spooning). And he snores. I did sleep (medicated) - and the service is much better than UA. Finally arrived in HK and going up to China Sunday for client work. 💺What airlines have your favorite long haul business class seat? #China #EU #businessclass #airlines #flights #united #Lufthansa #internationaltrade ##supplychain #seats #spooning #

Review: Asiana Airlines Business Class (A350) Asiana Airlines business class on the A350 features a largely outdated cabin but offers a terrific meal service. Click to see our review for more details. #Asiana #AsianaAirlines #BusinessClass #FlightReview #FrugalFlyer #Aeroplan #AirCanadaAeroplan

Review: Asiana Airlines Business Class (A350) Asiana Airlines business class on the A350 features a largely outdated cabin but offers a terrific meal service. Click to see our review for more details. #Asiana #AsianaAirlines #BusinessClass #FlightReview #FrugalFlyer #Aeroplan #AirCanadaAeroplan

Texts like this are the reason we do what we do! We’re thankful for every client we get to work with and love when they entrust us again and again!❤️ • • • • • #lavishandleisure #lavishandleisuretravel #privatejet #privatejets #privatejetlife #privatejetcharter #privatejetlifestyle #privatejettravel #flylavish #luxurytraveladvisors #luxurytravel

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