inTELLIGENCE - The Secret Ingredient to No-stress Flights
Nothing quite beats the feeling of turning your phone to flight mode, buckling up and relaxing back into your headrest after weeks of stress, deadlines and back-to-back event planning. And that’s where travel logistics companies can really help take off some of the load.
With over 20 years of experience, All About Flights is a highly regarded UK-owned company specialising in air travel logistics and providing tailored solutions for every scenario.
So, for the latest news on the Flight Deck and to answer all your burning questions, we’ve caught up with Kathy Bradley, Groups Director at All About Flights.
Kathy Bradley
Groups Director at All About Flights
inVOYAGE: First off, welcome back to inVOYAGE, it’s lovely to have you on board and we’re very much looking forward to welcoming you to our Q1 Event in Marbella.
For those who are new to All About Flights, can you tell us a bit about your services and why clients typically come to you for their flight logistics?
Kathy Bradley: Thank you, it’s lovely to be back! Yes absolutely, we’re a bespoke, low profile but high performing business which specialises in providing flight logistics to our partners within the MICE Industry. Everything we do here is generally for an incentive brief or conference. So, we’re typically dealing with those small to medium event agencies that don’t have their own aviation department. We offer a full logistical service for our customers - whatever their travel needs, and we cover pretty much all sizes of groups whether you’re a group of 10 or 15,000. Even groups less than 10 can be accommodated if you have a premium cabin as many airlines except a smaller number.
InVOYAGE: What do you think is the most important factor when considering how to best solve air travel logistics?
Kathy Bradley: For us, it’s recognising that no two groups are the same – our solutions need to be completely and whole-heartedly tailored to the client’s needs. We also need to remain neutral so that there’s no external driving force to pick one airline over another, other than its suitability to the client. For that reason, we don’t have any commercial agreements in place with any of the airlines. If someone comes to us with a request for Hong Kong, we get in touch with every airline that operates the route, return the schedules and prices to the client and if there’s no real difference in price or timings, then we give our recommendation based on the priorities of that particular client and any affects to the market e.g. what's the attrition? Will they allow us to hold a certain number of seats and drop a percentage prior to departure? What is their deviation policy? And of course, seating – we recognise if couples are not sat together, it can be a contentious issue...that’s where our expertise really kicks in.
inVOYAGE: So, providing a personal and bespoke service is key to your approach at All About Flights.
Kathy Bradley: Yes, it’s massively important – we want clients to see us as an operational arm of their own team. Your event is our event! So, if you’re coming to us with a request that doesn’t fit with the airlines normal operating practice, we can have those conversations directly with the airlines and find an option that’s viable for both parties. For example, some aircrafts might only offer 60% capacity for big groups but if you’re looking to seat 110 passengers on a 120-passenger aircraft, we have the experience to arrange that with the airline, negotiating it as an exception to the usual rule. That personal touch really is the secret to our success.
inVOYAGE: Looking ahead to 2023, how can you see the flight industry changing and evolving? What innovative solutions can you see airlines adopting in the future?
Kathy Bradley: One of the biggest aims in the industry is almost certainly the development of more sustainable practices and this is something airlines are constantly re-visiting. We’ve already seen some airlines advertise their move to all-electric fleets by 2050. I know that sounds an awfully long time away but if you think back 10 years, the thought of electric aircraft was just unthinkable.
In terms of the more immediate future, we’re likely to start to see a larger uptake in SAF (Sustainable Airline Fuel) among airlines. In fact, some of the controlling bodies are already suggesting they can operate with 50% sustainable fuel and many of them are looking to get that up as high as 100%. Alongside this, airlines are placing orders for greener, more modern aircraft and monitoring their current machinery to see how they can optimise its efficiency and reduce their carbon footprint.
inVOYAGE: Definitely a space to watch then! Can you tell us a bit about what trends you're starting to see on the horizon? Are there any emerging destinations our readers should keep an eye out for?
Kathy Bradley: It’s always so tricky to say, especially as we’re getting so many different types of inquiry. But I have started to see a shift – we’re seeing a lot more people looking at long-haul flights. In 2018-2019 I would have said our split was around 60-70% looking at Europe with only 30% long-haul but now we’re probably closer to 50/50 which is interesting. It’s probably in part due to the pandemic with some of the long-haul destinations coming out of lockdown a lot sooner than the European countries, but it’s something we’re still starting to see now that we’re in the early months of 2023. Two other interesting changes are much shorter lead times with several examples this year already of clients booking flights 10 days out! Secondly, we’re seeing a lot of larger groups over 500 or 1,000. Historically we might have had larger groups a couple of times a year but it’s now a couple of times a month – maybe because companies are making up for lost time after the pandemic and merging 2 or 3 incentives together.
In terms of emerging markets, we’re getting a lot more inquiries to Montenegro which is a destination of interest that historically hasn’t been very well served in terms of flight routes, but some low-cost airlines are now operating it seasonably as well as the very static route of Dubrovnik served by many. We’re also seeing more interest in South America with clients asking for Buenos Aires for instance. Then, looking East, we’ve had interest in Nepal and increased capacity on places like Maldives. Finally, you have the obvious picks - Mykonos and Ibiza for short-haul and New York and Vegas for long-haul but interestingly we’re also receiving conversations around destinations such as Austin and Pittsburgh which are fairly unusual destinations in the incentives market. So, it’s a real mix – there’s really never a right or a wrong in the incentive market. Pick any city and we’ll get you there!
InVOYAGE: That’s really interesting, and great to hear long-haul flights are bouncing back! Finally, before we finish up, it would be great to hear a bit more about the team over at All about Flights. What is it that you look for in leading your team?
Kathy Bradley: Being efficient, precise and responsive is a given but what really makes a difference is being able to pick up the phone at any time. Even sparing just 10 minutes to go through a brief with a client – that time is truly invaluable for both us and them as being able to give a quick overview on destination viability can really help the client to narrow down where to concentrate their efforts. In addition to our desire to always be accessible, our out-of-hours service plays a part for a lot of our clients. Because if you’re an event manager on site and something goes wrong, you absolutely need to know that you’ve got a human on the other end of the phone and you’re not going to be waiting in a call centre environment for three hours just to be answered.
I’m quite lucky that the vast majority of our team have quite a lot of experience in travel and have been with the company for many, many years. So, we have that continuity. But the team and I learn every day... In fact, I often say every day is a school day here – you never quite know what’s going to be thrown at you! But clients can rest assured that whatever they do throw at us we’ll manage.
inVOYAGE: Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, it’s been incredibly insightful, and we look forward to seeing you again in Marbella this March!
If you’d like to catch up with Kathy Bradley and the rest of the team at All About Flights, make sure you’re registered to join us in Marbella otherwise, if you can’t make it, why not get in touch with us via info@invoyage.net and we’ll set you up an introduction.