Sourcing accommodation for disruption management.
A drone sighting caused London Gatwick Airport (LGW) to close for over 36 hours, resulting in tens of thousands of passengers’ travel plans being disrupted, and we sourced accommodation for those impacted.
Out-of-hours team
1
Accommodated
7,020 people
Rooms sourced
7,020
Calls received over a two-day period
188
Objectives.
Our out-of-hours (OOH) team needed to roll out our disruption management protocols to ensure that we sourced accommodation for our customer, easyJet, and all 7,000 travellers and 20 crew members.
Your quick responses and being on the ball have really supported a smooth running of the disruption at the airport.
Gatwick Ground Handler, DHL
Solution.
When the disruption began, two of our employees worked together to source accommodation within close proximity to the airport. Securing these rooms upon request meant that easyJet could continue to provide a high level of service to their travellers.
We went on to arrange for a dedicated out-of-hours team to focus solely on easyJet’s requirements, whilst managers also attended a number of ‘Business Continuity Plan’ calls with key external stakeholders, allowing them to remain proactive and flexible by keeping a close hand on real-time events and updates. All information was delivered using webinars to provide open and clear channels of communication to each other and external parties.
We anticipated a knock-on effect to easyJet’s programmes, resulting in our team creating a plan to help manage this alongside ‘business as usual’. Additional employees were brought in to support the out-of-hours team overnight to sustain the level of support and dedication to the disruption.
Results.
Together the team assisted with sourcing hotel accommodation for 20 easyJet crew members and 7,000 customers; a stress-free billing process with all room and beverage costs being taken care of using our central billing service.