Organisations will take differing views depending upon the characteristics of their travel requirements and their corporate culture. The degree to which travellers can exercise a preference for certain transport modes and types on the basis of safety may vary.

Examples of the challenges and questions which travel managers and buyers may wish to explore include, but are not limited to :- 

 

1. GDS, TMC, online booking tool and other technologies should clearly, accurately and reliably identify the precise vehicle type at time of booking (including the derivative type)
2. Any flexibility granted to travellers based on perception of safety and security can be stated within the travel policy (ie what fare difference is acceptable to select an alternative aircraft type, is this reason code available offline and within the booking tool, etc)
3. Aircraft and other vehicle types can change at any time prior to departure and therefore a position is needed in terms of traveller expectations in the event of a specific type being subsequently deployed. This issue will frequently occur and so fundamentally impacts the way a travel policy addresses the original concern.
4. Organisations should ideally not apply differing approaches by carrier as theoretically any aircraft type could be utilised by any airline (eg in the event of a disruption-related substitution).

 

The issue of safety and security-related flexibility within a travel programme is highly complicated and it is difficult to take into account every eventuality. For example many aircraft are operated with multiple engine types and manufacturers, although this information is rarely captured and available to the travel management ecosystem . As such, any issue with a specific engine type would therefore very difficult to selectively manage.

ITM encourages all stakeholders in the industry to collaborate and share information widely and transparently to enable organisations to implement their policies and guidelines.