Corporate Travel News For The Americas

South African Airways (SAA) announced (29-Jun-2023) plans to launch twice weekly Cape Town-São Paulo service from 31-Oct-2023 and twice weekly Johannesburg-São Paulo service from 06-Nov-2023. The service marks the carrier's first intercontinental route to Sao Paulo since the airline returned to the skies in Sep-2021. São Paulo was identified as the biggest unserved market with the fastest growth for Cape Town and the Western Cape in 2019, prior to the onset of the pandemic. 43,000 two way passengers were recorded to have travelled between the two regions in 2019, with passenger growth of 26% on average p/a between 2015 and 2019. Cape Town Air Access initiative spokesperson Wrenelle Stander stated: "A direct, nonstop connection will significantly boost the recovery of Latin American traffic to Cape Town, which stood at only 23% in 2022 compared to 2019 passenger volumes. Beyond the convenience factor, Cape Town is perfectly positioned to serve as a connecting hub between Asia and South America - the direct route will be the shortest one available to date". SAA interim CEO John Lamola said: "We are overjoyed to announce São Paulo as our first international destination since the airline successfully emerged from an intensive Business Rescue process and Covid-19 lockdown. It also marks our return of our long haul service out of Cape Town". SAA appointed APG in Brazil as its GSA. [more - original PR] [more - original PR - II]

Aviation Week Network regional director of air transport Asia Pacific Lu Luo, speaking at the CTC Singapore Corporate Travel Summit, stated (27-Jun-2023) ongoing economic risks may jeopardise the recovery of global passenger traffic, which is expected to occur in 2024. Mr Luo noted risks including the strong US dollar, high inflation, rising interest rates, labour and fuel costs, supply chain challenges and the Russia-Ukraine conflict may pose a challenge.

United Airlines launched (22-Jun-2023) a new mobile app feature providing disrupted passengers with rebooking options and meal and accommodation vouchers automatically. In the event of a flight delay of more than 60 minutes or a cancellation, the self-service tool automatically presents personalised rebooking options, bag tracking information and vouchers when eligible on the mobile app home screen. [more - original PR]

Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport, via its official Twitter account, announced (22-Jun-2023) Delta Air Lines plans to increase Los Angeles-Sydney frequency from 10 times weekly to twice daily from 17-Dec-2023 through late Mar-2024. According to OAG, American Airlines, Qantas Airways and United Airlines are also scheduled to operate the route.

Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC) announced (20-Jun-2023) the latest release of the ARC Trip Classification Indicator (TCI), which provides insights into whether a trip's primary purpose is business or leisure. The new release shifts away from pre-pandemic data comparisons to reflect current travel patterns. The latest indicator uses artificial intelligence trained on 135 million aggregated global air travel passenger trips from 2022. ARC reported the following findings from TCI:

• Corporate travellers are booking air travel further in advance. The percentage of tickets purchased more than 14 days prior to departure increased in 2022, compared to 2019;
• Business trips lasting five to seven days increased in 2022, compared to typical trips of three or four days before the pandemic. [more - original PR]

Vancouver International Airport, via its official Twitter account, announced (16-Jun-2023) Cathay Pacific reopened its lounge at the airport. The lounge is open to first and business class passengers travelling on Cathay and eligible oneworld members.

American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) announced (06-Jun-2023) the US Patent and Trademark Office granted it a fifth patent for 'Determining Customer Risk of Attrition', an invention that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor and improve customer satisfaction. The invention is based on a 'tree' shaped data structure and uses machine learning to monitor large amounts of customer communications data to gather 'sentiment scores' from customer feedback. The resulting information is analysed to uncover the contributing factors of high satisfaction levels and retention rates and helps detect reasons for lower satisfaction levels and retention rates. The invention displays the insights in an interactive graphical user interface to visualise trends from the onset of the relationship and deploy actions to improve the metrics. [more - original PR]

American Airlines partnered (05-Jun-2023) with Accelya to enable travel management companies to exchange unused legacy EDIFACT tickets for new distribution capability (NDC) tickets. Accelya can obtain access to EDIFACT issued tickets using the carrier's API and submit extracted fare information to its shopping provider to obtain a price for the exchange. The functionality aims to boost the adoption of NDC by addressing a key challenge faced by travel retailers as they transition from traditional global distribution systems, and can be implemented for any NDC enabled carrier. [more - original PR]

Onfly completed (07-Jun-2023) a USD16 million Series A investment round, led by Left Lane Capital and Cloud9 Capital. The company provides businesses with an end-to-end corporate travel and expense management software platform, and will utilise the funds to scale sales and marketing efforts, build new products and engage in M&A activity. [more - original PR]

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby, speaking to CAPA TV on the sidelines of the IATA AGM, reported (05-Jun-2023) corporate travel demand remains 20% to 25% lower than previously forecast. Mr Kirby attributed the lagging corporate recovery to an ongoing "business recession" due to worldwide economic pressures, however strong consumer demand is "more than making up for the lack of business travel". Mr Kirby stated premium revenue per available seat mile (RASM) is similar to pre-pandemic levels as the carrier continues to sell "far more premium leisure seats than we ever did before".