Writes Lynne Harrison, Executive Vice President
12 years in the making – but finally our American-based Service Desk went live on June 8th! Definitely a milestone event for this region and we look forward to seeing it expand as customer interest is high – especially for smaller airports where out of hours support is proving challenging for the airport to provide. More about that here.
What else has been going on?
Passengers are returning to the US airports – although these are largely leisure travelers and the airports are still running with reduced facilities, especially concessions.
Business travelers remain few – although not quite the ‘endangered species’ they appeared to be three months ago – and are having to get used to sharing “their planes” with infrequent fliers/children/small dogs.
Airlines are resisting adding extra flights and have, instead, increased fares. This should serve two purposes – one being to encourage earlier booking, so they can better gauge demand and the other being the potential to return to profitability and start paying off their debts.
The airlines are also preparing for the return of international flights by bringing planes back into service – even if it means using them domestically in the short term/to get them where they need them. According to United, I will be flying on a Dreamliner between O’Hare and Dulles in mid-July – it’s usually a 90-seater! Time alone will tell whether this becomes a reality.
While Canada is trialing the US in terms of people moving around the country, there is obviously a pent-up demand so we can expect to see a similar pattern within the next few months. At the time of writing, the US-Canadian border remains closed until July 21st – there is a lot pressure to reopen it.
Ultimately, as it has in the past, our industry will rebound because it provides the only way to rapidly, cost effectively and safely transport significant numbers of us curious humans around our planet!
Even after over 20 years, I still love being a part of the only industry that can do this!
This unique 777 boarded through a ServiceTec supported ASBG in LAX on June 22nd…
…and our team welcomed it to rather less sunny Schiphol the following morning
Following the success of our first virtual Town Hall in December, we’ve held two more since – one in March and the other in June. On the whole, these have been well received and we will probably continue with this initiative on a quarterly basis – provided we can come up with topics to talk about.
I attended my first in-person conference during April – the ACI-NA CEO Forum. It was strange to be with a group of people again – and not everyone was fully vaccinated – but it was also reassuring to see how resilient the industry is especially as there were far more in-person attendees than expected.
On the topic of people wanting to get together in-person, we’ve booked to attend Smart Airports in San Antonio in August. This isn’t an event we would usually all attend but, as it is expected to be one of the first big, in-person, industry gatherings for almost 18 months, it seemed a good one to be at. Not unexpectedly, ACI-NA Annual Conference and Exhibition, which was scheduled for Toronto in October, has had to move to the US and is now scheduled for Reno in November. Other in-person events are starting to return to the calendar as ‘webinar-fatigue’ has set in big time!
Overall, I’m happy to put the last 15 months behind us, as we start our new financial year. We’ve achieved a lot more than simply still being here – although that is an achievement in itself! I think the next 6 months will be busy, challenging, interesting, exciting and, I sincerely hope, fun!
