What happens when plans change

A major aspect of our work is booking regular business travel for many of our corporate clients. Take Charles Greening for example. He was travelling on business from the UK to Los Angeles, then on to visit another client in North Carolina, with a final flight to New York before returning to the UK in time for the weekend.

This wasn't the first time that Charles had made this trip but on this occasion a major storm hit New York and his flight from Greensborough, North Carolina, was cancelled. Within thirty minutes of notification, we had rebooked Charles onto another flight on another airline a couple of hours later so as to give time for the storm to pass.

Just then our mobile rang. Charles was on the line and clearly upset as he had just heard that his son had had an accident and had been rushed into A&E back in the UK. All bets were off and our new challenge was to get Charles back to the UK as fast as possible.

The bad weather had really set in by now and all flights from North Carolina had been grounded so we mobilised our Travel Counsellor duty desk to look at every flight from anywhere on the US East Coast to London. There was absolutely no availability until after the weekend, which frankly was hopeless. With determined persistence, we eventually unlocked one single seat to London leaving on the following day from Atlanta Georgia!

However, there were now no flights from Greensborough to Atlanta. So, we arranged a taxi to drive Charles to North Carolina's Charlotte Douglas airport, which was over 100 miles away, and we also booked him on a direct flight to Atlanta. Arriving at Atlanta in plenty of time for that hard-fought last seat on the UK flight, Charles was at his son's bedside the following morning.

We are delighted that his son made a full recovery and that we were able to support Charles in getting him back to the UK as quickly as we could.

"Ian and Barbara really pulled out all the stops to help me overcome my challenging circumstances. The bad weather, lack of flights, and other complications didn't faze their team and they strove tirelessly to get me home as fast as physically possible. My family and I are extremely grateful and we continue to recommend you to all our friends and business colleagues."

In fact, since that dramatic incident, Charles and many other people from his company have booked both business travel and foreign holiday trips through us ever since!