United Airlines is expanding big time internationally

United Airlines recently announced they want to be the King over the Pond by expanding to multiple cities in Europe next year. In 2023 they will have almost 30% more seats to Europe than in 2019. Many of the airlines are holding their breath worrying about how the predicted recession will affect international travel and thus being much more cautious than United.  I am hopeful this expansion will keep prices at a reasonable level and also free up some frequent flyer business class seats for travel to Europe next year. Three cheers for United for taking a positive leadership position in the industry. CLICK HERE to read more.  

Delta sees business travelers returning to flying – Delta just reported their 3rd Quarter financial earnings with positive results in profits as well as the return of the business traveler who purchases premium seats with a much higher yield for the airline. Delta is also enjoying a strong booking surge after Labor Day and is hopeful that this will continue into the 4th quarter. From everything I am reading about Delta, they are bullish about their future and confident that the COVID recession is behind them. CLICK HERE to read about the details.  

Good news and bad news from American Airlines – First the bad news, American is planning to eliminate international first-class seats in their new wide-body airplanes they bring on in 2024 and beyond. AA was the only major domestic airline to offer international first-class seating and four classes of seats as both United and Delta moved to three classes of seats years ago. They replaced first class with upgraded business class seating which they argued was even better than their original first-class seating. The good news for AA is that they are replacing their first-class seating with some amazing private suites that will be classified as business class. With international business class seating costing between $5,000 and $15,000 RT to Europe, you can see why all the major airlines are trying to outdo each other for business class travelers in the years to come.  

I think everyone is sick and tired of virtual meetings – For the past two years, virtual meetings have been an amazing blessing for people to stay engaged with business, friendships, meetings, and educational training. While virtual meetings are not going away, I am seeing thousands of in-person meetings and conventions on the books for this fall. I think people are missing the personal connection that comes from meeting face-to-face. Pressing the flesh. Having a business meeting. It is like we are coming out of a great hibernation. It’s time to live again. It’s time to travel. 

We have had so many people who contact us to go on vacation we have had to move to appointments only to make sure we don’t compromise service levels – Our vacation team has been overwhelmed this year with calls from people who want to go on vacation. When people call our office for a vacation, we now have our receptionist schedule them a date and time to meet in person or on the phone to plan their vacation. We have found this is a great way to make sure we provide outstanding service and that people’s expectations of when they will be called back are met. We never want to disappoint you and we hope by scheduling appointments you can count on us to continue to provide outstanding service.  

Our team that handles business travel works much differently than our vacation team – We take great pride in answering the phone in an average of 9 seconds or less and providing immediate service for all business traveler needs. Our goal is to be the fastest company in the industry to answer our phones with a real live person.  It is amazing in this world of high tech that something so simple as a real person answering the phone can be such a beautiful thing.