In its steady evolution as a mainstream vacation alternative, the cruise industry has gone through several perspective shifts. Per CLIA's latest state of the cruise industry report, guests are increasingly expecting cruise lines to provide transformational experiences. By providing a ken of experiences from cultural immersion and "volun-tourism" to extreme adventures, those returning from a cruise are expecting a shift in perspective and a profound sense of accomplishment. In an earnest bid to help guests push the envelope on their vacations and to create unique encounters to take back ho...

As was explored in the previous blog post in the series, obsolete legacy systems are usually the result of a dangerously myopic IT strategy. Overcoming the heavy cost implications of migrating away from legacy systems could begin with looking at a cloud based approach. But that is only the first piece of the entire structure; it is critical for the new age platform to recognize and have the capacity to enable certain principles that are inherent for the business practices we can foresee for the next generation. BBC Capital recently published an analysis of such decisions [to persist with legac...

It is estimated that airline disruptions cause losses of $60 billion each year on a global scale. As per the latest Air Travel Consumer Report published by the United States Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings, over 20% of all flights in all US airports experienced delays in the time period covered (May 2018). A good 7% of these are attributed to late arriving aircraft, while another 5% are due to factors which are within the airline's control. But apart from the compelling statistics, real world examples continue to showcase the importance of investing in a reliable operations mana...

The immediate focus of any employee travel system should be on bringing greater visibility in securing seat(s), as well as providing the user with the means to resolve any unfortunate outcomes, such as being denied a seat, in the most efficient way possible. by Author Having explored the predictability problem in the first part of this blog series, let us now explore the other two crucial aspects of airline staff travel management.  Enabling better reaction speeds for corrective action When the domino effect is set off by a last minute non-availability of seats on the flight for the ...

Discounted or free travel privileges of airline employees (and their travel nominees) come with a significant caveat – the tickets are mostly on a 'space available' basis and therefore not confirmed until just before flight closure, and a full fare paying passenger will always be assigned a higher priority when it comes to limited availability of seats. This is because the seat availability information is known only at the last moment, and in high traffic situations the uncertainty can escalate to frustration for the airline employee or their nominee(s) who hopes to travel.   Read more: G...