How I managed the Qantas grounding using remote technology

Corporate Travel Management is one of the country’s most successful businesses of its kind, turning over $500 million and servicing thousands of corporate clients’ travel needs.

But it was thrown into chaos last week when Qantas suddenly announced it would be halting all planes due to industrial action. Chief executive Jamie Pherous says his company was able to survive by using remote technology that allowed staff to work from home.

You just had your AGM. What’s your assessment on how the business is going this year?

We’ve been going very well. Last year we were up 125% on the bottom line, and going forward we’ve given forecasts of 30-40% for this year. We’ve had half a billion in turnover, but that will grow by 30-40%. I think that growth just comes down what we’ve focused on through the year, that being our clients. We need to be able to demonstrate that we can be flexible and make savings for our clients.

We’ve also focused a lot on ROI, and making that measurable. That has helped us a lot.

Let’s talk about last weekend. The Qantas announcement would have caught you off guard?

Yes, in a way, but to be honest, a lot of it was just business as usual. It’s all to do with logistics and planning. We moved 5,000 people on to flights on the weekend, and we got 90% of them home – I think that’s a pretty amazing result. What’s even better is that about 80% of our calls were handled within the first five minutes.

Sure, but it’s not every weekend that the biggest airline in the country grounds its entire fleet.

Absolutely, but we need to prepare for everything. We’ve lived through floods, cyclones, earthquakes, terrorists. It’s a little bit of business as usual when things like this happen, although it does show an opportunity to prove ourselves to clients and show them our value. It can be easier with a smaller agency such as ours.

So you had a plan for something like this?

We have plenty of contingency plans in place. The main thing is that we communicate to our clients, and we need to let them know that the supply of flights has dropped. So it’s a mixture of a few things including Facebook and Twitter, but we also have a mobile platform that we use.

This platform tracks clients, so we have the ability to send anyone a text message letting them know their plane is cancelled. Whoever gets the best information first is the one that will get out of the airport. It’s a great feature, and it gets people in the know quickly.

So people get a text message, they get the information they need, and then they can make the next decision as to what it is they want to do.

You used a lot of technology last weekend. Can you describe how you did that?

We have an after-hours team, we have a d-team for disasters that happen all the time. So obviously when 65% of the supply of the market is taken out, that’s pretty huge, essentially the same as closing down an entire border. So internally, we contacted the entire team to see who could go and be online.

Getting people at home is a lot faster than trying to call everyone to see if they can come into the office.

Can you talk about the remote login system your staff use from home?

It’s a passcode system to bring you onto the internal structure of the IT system. From there you can take calls, manage flights and do everything you could in the office. It’s great, it means when people are at home they can still do all the work and we can be prepared for situations like this.

When did you start looking at using such a system?

About a year ago, we started looking at it right after the first ash cloud. We listened to clients and we realised that we needed to be on board all the time. So you’re always going to have to be available for people who are travelling – that’s the whole proposition behind it.

Do you have people working from home a lot normally?

We have a lot of people working full-time, but at the end of the day, we’re all internet based. Having a flexible workplace is so important, and having that ability to work with clients from home is just essential.

I think some competitors of ours have tried to do similar things but can’t. And you just need to be able to service them because when Qantas goes out, the gap between them and the next carrier is still there, even though Virgin and Jetstar pick up the slack.

These days with the supply of employment, you need to have a balance between work and lifestyle. And when you’re working in this industry, you need to keep a cool head, you need to make sure you’ve got the contacts and knowledge, and make yourself calm.

So we’ve found that people working at home suits that. You have mothers that want to work when their child is still very young, and they’re able to do so. Rather than having all the people in the office, our workforce is spread.

Are you looking at expanding the role of technology in the company?

The weekend is a great case in point. We had some great stats, got a lot of thank you’s, and the whole thing ended up really well. I think it shows why this type of approach can have some great market value.