In Deep Freeze, Agents to the Rescue

The deep freeze that has descended on much of the country sent travel agents scrambling to assist clients whose plans were disrupted when thousands of flights were cancelled or delayed.

At times over the weekend air traffic across the nation seemed to be at a standstill, one agent said. Agents who tried to reach the airlines by phone encountered lengthy hold times.

The timing of the freeze couldn’t have been much worse. It came on the heels of wintry storms in the Midwest and the Northeast. It also affected many travelers still on their way home after the holidays, as well as business travelers hitting the road for the first time in the New Year.

Crazy days
“We’ve had a few days that are crazy, because delays are happening in Chicago, and JetBlue has been hit hard,” said James Bovino, team leader of Liberty Travel in Englewood, N.J.

“A lot of clients are stuck, waiting to get home,” he said. “It’s kind of that perfect storm, with the weather, operational issues and it being holiday season.”

On Monday, Flight Aware reported more than over 8,000 delayed flights and 4,100 cancelled flights. The situation improved slightly on Tuesday, when there were 2,500 cancelled flights and 4,300 delayed flights.

Flights originating in Chicago, Cleveland, La Guardia (New York City) and Indianapolis were most affected, while as destination cities Chicago, New York, Cleveland and Boston were most impacted, according to Flight Aware.

Re-booking
Bovino said Liberty Travel met the challenge of the situation. The agency’s system informs agents where their clients are, so they can go in and rebook them.

“We had a family stuck in Aruba,” he said. “Their flight was cancelled, and our agency wait-listed the family on three different flights.

“Within an hour, United cleared them, and two hours later they were on their way home. That’s something where if they had booked direct or online, they would have been told they couldn’t get home.”

At a standstill
The travel disruptions caused by the frigid weather impacted agent24’s entire client base, said executive Michelle Scherber.

“This weekend rates right up there with Hurricane Sandy,” commented Scherber, senior vice president, operations manager for agent24, which provides after-hours service to travel agencies. (Editor’s note: Agent24 is a sister company to Travel Market Report.)

“This affected multiple cities and multiple carriers. It snowballed; it was like traffic was at a standstill.”

Delays in Chicago were a big factor. “It doesn’t matter if the client was located in San Diego or New York; if Chicago is experiencing weather, there will be an impact across the board,” Scherber said.
 
24/7 service
Over the weekend, agent24’s management team called out its Weather Desk to deal with the situation.

“It was all hands on deck,” Scherber said. “Our inbound call volume was probably five times what we normally get in a day.”

Usually a carrier will re-book a passenger on the next available flight when his or her flight is cancelled, she explained. In this case, however, thousands of flights were cancelled, so agent24 worked to identify passengers who needed assistance.

But even for agents, rebooking could be a challenge. In some cases agents were unable to deal with carriers electronically or via their websites and had no choice but to call them. Hold times on those phone calls ranged from one to four hours, according to Scherber.

Business travelers
In Wisconsin, weather-related cancellations and delays affected many of Fox World Travel’s corporate clients, said Rose Gray, business development manager.

“If you’re a salesperson or a road warrior you hit the ground running, traveling right after New Year’s,” she said.

Airports in smaller cities like Green Bay and Appleton, Wisc., were heavily impacted by the weather, and travelers in those cities were either bussed by the airlines or took their own transportation to Chicago O’Hare.

Unfortunately, once they reached O’Hare, they were affected by that airport’s disruptions in service, said Gray, who noted that Fox World Travel has an after-hours service to deal with such emergencies.

Many of Fox’s business clients chose to call its after-hours service to postpone their flights until next week, rather than risk a delay or cancellation this week, said Gray, adding that airlines had extended waiver codes, removing penalties for re-booking flights, until Jan. 8.

Not all affected
Not every agency felt the full brunt of the weather-related problems.

Martha Gaughen, vice president of Brownell Travel in Atlanta, said only about 30 of the agency’s clients were affected.

Many of them were traveling to their homes in the north after the holidays or were trying to return home to Atlanta from California following the Auburn-Florida State bowl game on Monday night.

Performing well
Despite the pressures, the airlines proved fairly adept at handling the crisis, according to agents.

“Considering it’s a major disruption, the airlines did a pretty good job of cancelling what they had to,” said Liberty’s Bovino.

“Right now it appears from the New York area that we’re pretty much back to normal and most of our clients are back to where they have to be or are rescheduled.”

Chicago remains a problem with “ripples” that could go through Thursday or Friday, he added.

The upside – demonstrating value
As with many events that disrupt travel, this week’s deep-freeze demonstrated the value of their services, agents noted.

“These are the days we look forward to because we really shine as travel consultants,” said Bovino. “We show people what we can do and that they can’t do it by themselves.”

Andrew Sheivachman contributed to this report.