INTERVIEW

IN CASE OF EMERGENCY

Helping travellers from all over the world, the CWT Emergency Service Centre (ESC) in London handles over 15,000 calls per month. Trevor Greenaway heads up the ESC and tells CONNECT how the 70-strong team helps travellers with anything, from changing flight reservations to a large-scale evacuation

CONNECT: How do you define a crisis incident?
TREVOR GREENAWAY: Three types of incidents will trigger our global incident management process:  
1. Aircraft If there is a serious incident, as soon as we know the flight number, we can run reports to identify travellers who are booked to be on that flight. It can never be 100% accurate as a traveller may have missed the flight or changed their reservation directly with the airline.  
2. Airport We would immediately run a report for all travellers scheduled to pass through the airport. Analysis of the report would enable the ESC to track passengers in the specific terminal impacted.  
3. Geographic This could include a bomb in a city centre or a natural disaster such as an earthquake or hurricane. The CWT Program Management Centre provides travel managers with the ability to track travellers and identify who is already in or scheduled to be in that location and contact them.

C: How do you keep track of breaking news/monitor possible risks?
TG: We have a dedicated link to the Reuters news agency; we get the news at same time as the newsrooms do. The ESC team constantly monitors this and also the various TV screens in the office for any incidents around the world.

The ESC team can also help travellers avoid a potential risk. For example, a client had a large group on a flight to Houston as the concern about Hurricane Katrina was growing. During the flight, the ESC team booked return flights and arranged for the group to turn around as soon as they landed and to fly home on the same aircraft.

C: When was the last time you had to deal with a crisis incident?
TG: Unfortunately, there have been many in the last six months – the Mumbai hotel attacks, the Air France disaster and hotel bombs in Jakarta. These incidents once again highlight the importance of booking all travel via your travel management company. There were some travellers in Jakarta who had booked their flight with CWT and their local office had booked the hotel so their company back home couldn’t track them or know if they were staying at the hotels involved.

C: What happens once an incident has been identified?
TG: CWT offers a range of products and services to inform companies of potential risks and help locate and assist travellers in a crisis. When a crisis occurs and the global incident management process is triggered, clients are quickly notified of the risk through alert messages sent by phone, email or SMS. The next step is to run reports to identify any travellers who could be impacted by the incident and advise the travel manager or whomever has been designated as the first point of contact. CWT provides immediate traveller tracking through an interactive graphical map available 24 hours a day in the CWT Program Management Centre. Clients can quickly drill down to the location affected and see detailed reporting information, updated daily, to identify travellers who might be affected. They can then decide a course of action to contact the travellers impacted and help them as necessary.

We can provide corporate travel managers with the ability to directly communicate with the affected travellers during an incident, allowing them to deliver company-specific instructions quickly.

C: What are some of the day–to-day incidents the ESC helps with?
TG: Thankfully the majority of calls we take are for minor incidents – minor in the grand scheme of things, that is; if someone calls the ESC then they are having a personal emergency. Mostly we get asked to amend existing reservations or to help with a service issue such as a hotel room being released before the traveller checks in. Sometimes travellers call us if they’ve lost their passport or it’s been stolen. In this situation often all we can do is give advice or the number of the embassy. For the team working at ESC having empathy and a sympathetic ear are of equal importance as business-travel acumen.

We do get some interesting calls. One traveller called because there wasn’t a bed in his hotel room and another called from the plane on the tarmac to ask us why the flight wasn’t taking off. Patience and a sense of humour are also prerequisite for working here.

C: How many ESCs does CWT have and where are they?
TG: Three – London, St Louis and Sydney. In London we take calls from EMEA, Asia Pacific and Latin America; St Louis is for travellers from North America; and Sydney is only for Australia-based travellers. In addition, some clients prefer and pay for a dedicated services as part of their overall service configuration and strategy.

C: How do travellers know where to call?
TG: The ESC number is printed on the traveller’s itinerary. During normal working hours, the first point of contact should always be the travel service centre that made the original booking. The CWT team at the service centre are familiar with the company’s travel program in a way that the ESC is not designed for. The CWT ESC is exactly that, an Emergency Service Centre.

C: What are some of the challenges?
TG: Retrieving the booking quickly is one of the biggest challenges we face. The expectation is often that we can find the booking with just the traveller’s name, however the reality is we need to know which CWT service centre made the booking. It helps enormously if the traveller knows the CWT booking reference, which can be found on the itinerary. This really speeds up the process.

C: Which crisis incident are you most proud of playing a part in, and why?
TG: CWT’s current safety and security offering was pretty much defined as a result of the events of September 11, 2001. What happened that day totally changed what companies expect from a travel management company. I’m very proud of how the ESC team worked together and reacted not only on September 11, but for the period that followed (due to the US air travel ban). Off-duty team members came in to help and everyone did extra hours to cope with the exceptionally high call volume. They worked around the clock for six days helping non US-based travellers find accommodation until flights were operating. Today, ESC involvement in an incident is over in a matter of hours due to technology and the processes that are in place.

C: Any final safety advice for travellers?
TG: 1. Pay attention to all safety instructions given by the crew before and during every flight. Some of the most serious injuries I’ve seen have occurred when a plane went through turbulence and passengers have not had their seatbelt fastened in spite of being told to do so.  
2. Think carefully about what you put into the overhead lockers and the consequences it might have if it fell out and injured someone. This is one of the most common incidents and is easily preventable.  
3. Check out your destination before you leave your home country. Pre-trip destination information is available to CWT travellers 24/7 via CWT Portal. This includes risk assessments, breaking news, and general health and safety advice.

Up Close with Trevor Greenaway

Before joining CWT in 2000, Trevor Greenaway was with KLM for 22 years, starting as an account clerk and working up to reservation manager for the UK and Ireland. He then moved into corporate travel with a small business travel agency before joining the CWT ESC.

What do you do when not working?
I am a Cub Scout leader and that takes up a lot of my time. Working with young people is very rewarding.

What is your favourite holiday destination and why?
I love travelling and my preference is for sunshine and beach holidays. So far, I think the Maldives has to be my favourite destination as it was the perfect holiday quiet, relaxing and absolutely beautiful. I’d go back tomorrow.

What do you never travel without?
My MP3 player and speakers. I take them everywhere as I love listening to music.

How do you pass time on long haul flights?
Eating everything that is available, and, as I’m a bit of a film buff, I watch lots of movies. As soon as I get on board I scan the entertainment guide.