Great news! We are now taking orders for face masks for travelers –

This past week many airlines announced they are requiring face masks for all staff and passengers who are flying in the future. Many of the airlines said they would make face masks available at the check-in desk or gate. We do not know at this time if they will provide them for free or for an additional cost. Needless to say, if you are planning to fly, you probably want to have a few spare face masks handy before you head to the airport. Also, many people who travel in cars and check into hotels will probably need these as well. With this in mind, Executive Travel has been able to secure 3-ply face masks as well as 4-ply KN95 face masks and will now make them available while supplies last. We have guaranteed a price of 99 cents each (packages of 50 for a total of $49.50 per box) for the 3- ply, disposable masks that are FDA approved and certified. The KN95 masks are 4-ply, damp proof, non-woven fabric plus anti-dust cotton. The KN95 masks are available for a price of $3.99 each in packets of 10. Executive Travel is making these available at our cost as a service to our customers. Sales tax and shipping costs will be additional. Our current supply is 10,000 units, and they are available while supplies last. If you are interested, please email nancyc@executivetravel.com. Please provide your company information, phone, and address they should be shipped to. Upon confirmation, Nancy will send you a link for secure payment by credit card.

Hertz Car Rental may file for bankruptcy in the coming days –

The not so perfect storm of a massive drop in car rentals and the decline in value of used cars has caused the giant car rental company to miss a loan payment last week and now faces filing for bankruptcy in the coming days. Please be aware experts say that even if Hertz does file for bankruptcy, they will continue to operate as a car rental company, and they will continue to rent cars in the foreseeable future. This is just one of many dominos that are about to fall in the travel industry as the COVID-19 tsunami wave overtakes the travel industry. CLICK HERE to read more.

Almost 75% of people say they plan to travel this year once travel restrictions are lifted –

A recent survey by Skift Research indicates a surprisingly high number of people plan to travel before the end of the year. Just as I predicted, many people surveyed said they would start out traveling by driving instead of flying. The airlines are anticipating that things will probably return very slowly, and some are predicting that it may take as long as three years for things to be back to Pre-virus normal. About one-third of the people in the survey said they planned to travel within three months. As I have said before, I think there will be a lot of pent-up demand for traveling once the government says the coast is clear, and people feel confident that they are safe to travel. CLICK HERE to read the whole article.

My prediction that travel to Europe would open up on May 11 may have been too optimistic –

Some countries in Europe are slowly opening up, but not much movement is being made by European airlines. Our friends at Turkish Airlines will not start flying until June. United Airlines appears to be adding back more daily flights faster than some airlines in the next few weeks. We still see a lot of travel that was moved from this spring to this fall, so the hope is that June will be the “GO” month, and traffic will continue to build the rest of the year.

I’m trying to figure out how to get my passport renewed during this shutdown –

My passport is set to expire on January 27, 2021. Although that seems far away, many countries will not allow you to travel there if your return date is less than six months before your passport expiration. That means that six months prior is July 26, 2020. That is an amazing 11 weeks away, and I will not be able to travel internationally if I am not able to renew my passport by then. Today I went to the U.S. State Department web site and saw these words, ”If you apply or renew now, you will experience significant delays of several months to receive your U.S. passport and the return of your citizenship evidence documents (such as birth certificates or naturalization certificates). Unless you have a life-or-death emergency, please wait until we resume normal operations to apply for or renew your passport.” I guess I will be stuck at home until the world starts spinning again.

We found an amazing trainer to help our team build skills while travel is frozen –

As I mentioned last week, on April 15, our team celebrated the end of furloughs and shortened work weeks as our whole team went back to full-time work and staffing when we received funding from the new SBA Paycheck Protection Program. Obviously, with travel down over 90%, our team needed to keep busy, so we made a massive commitment to spend this downtime by training and improving all our skill sets. Several years ago, we had a professional speaker named Jeff Beals present at one of our company meetings. We liked his messaging and asked if he would be willing to do a weekly zoom presentation to our team. Last week was the first presentation he made, and I must admit I was not too excited at first glance with the title of the talk being, “Managing the Fear and Uncertainty Experienced by You and Your Clients.” I thought this would just be a boilerplate talk without much punch. But after the conversation, I felt it was fantastic. I have asked Jeff Beals if I could share it with you, and he gave the green light. CLICK HERE if you want to watch his presentation. Also If you need a great trainer on sales and other skills to help build your team through these tough times, you should contact Jeff at www.jeffbeals.com