Huge influx of travellers and severe weather predictions for Christmas

Airports across the nation are expected to have a huge influx of passengers as the festive season approaches. A study by British Airways found that, as a nation, Brits will travel 4.7 billion miles to take gifts to friends or relatives over the holidays.[1] Experts also warn of severe weather forecasts for Britain in December expected to cause wide-spread chaos for travellers.[2]

With an influx of air travellers coupled with severe weather warnings, delays are inevitable over the Christmas period.[3] With flight delays and cancellations, travel providers are obliged under the EU to pay customers up to £536 in compensation if their flight has been delayed over 3 hours.[4]
Over 85 per cent of the customer requests which arise from flights being delayed, rescheduled or cancelled, require agents to go through detailed fare rules. Manually checking Global Distribution Systems and other reference points leaves travel companies liable to agent errors and retail losses hence impacting overall end customer satisfaction.

The latest report by the Civil Aviation Authority shows that 44 per cent of people are dissatisfied with complaint handling, during peak seasons such as Christmas where delays and cancelations are inevitable, travel providers are under pressure to simultaneously manage a high volume of requests.

Rajnish Sharma, EVP & Market Leader for U.K & Europe, Teleperformance Digital Integrated Business Services comments: “To rebook passengers onto another flight in the event of delays or cancelations can cause significant financial impairment to airlines. Additionally, it can also adversely affect brand reputation with extremely negative feedback being expressed on social media by travellers. We at TP D.I.B.S have been recently ranked as a top level travel domain business service provider by HFS. Lack of communication between airlines and their customers has a big impact on customer experience, causing unwanted stress for both staff and customers. In response, travel providers are beginning to use new technologies that enhance the means by which they can process, manage and better engage with customers.”