Surrey business award winner, Global Travel Management, one of the UK’s leading business travel management companies, this week announced the appointment of Kelly Packington to its board.

Kelly, who lives in Addlestone, near GTM’s Woking head office, started working for the company as a Senior reservations consultant in 2003 and became an Office Manager in 2013. Her appointment as GTM Operations Director will be effective with immediate effect from 9 December 2016..

GTM Managing Director, Scott Pawley says: “The role of Operations Director is an important part of our road map for the future so we’re delighted that Kelly taking up the post, our first board appointment since 2003. Kelly has worked her way through the ranks and proved to be a great asset to the company. As a manager she has been very effective and I know that Kelly is going to be a valuable addition to the Board team.”

In addition to winning the title of Toast of Surrey Best Business with a Turnover over £5million in Toast of Surrey, GTM also won for the second year running, the title of Business Travel Agent of the Year, awarded by the UK’s largest independent travel agent partnership group Advantage Travel Partnership. GTM also had the added kudos in 2015 of seeing Kelly win the title of AFP, Champion of the Year.

“We are at the top of our game as a corporate TMC,” says Scott. “I belive that as a company we will benefit from Kelly’s appointment as her fresh perspective will help add value to our decision-making. I think that ensuring we have a diverse team at the helm helps us to remain relevant and vital and tapping into our own high quality internal pool of talent is a no-brainer.”

The RMT union has called off a Southern rail strike just before Christmas, instead announcing a 48-hour stoppage from 19 December.

 

The decision to cancel the planned three day strike from 22 December follows a consultation with its members.

British Airways has announced a change to its credit card fee for consumer and trade bookings.

From 14 December 2016, if customers choose to pay using a credit card they will now be charged a non-refundable 1% fee of their total ticket price, up to a maximum of £20.

British Airways will continue to offer a selection of free payment methods on ba.com and through the trade.

Switzerland, Spain and Finland will also move to 1% fee from 14 December which will be capped at EUR25 and CHF30.

British Airways does not profit from these fees – they make a contribution towards the charges levied by the credit card companies.

Strike of the Pilots union “Vereinigung Cockpit” (VC) for Lufthansa flights between 23 and 25 November 2016

The pilots union Cockpit (VC) has called for a trike for Lufthansa flights departing from Germany:

 

On Wednesday, 23 November from 00:01 to 23:59 hours (CET) on all short-haul and long-haul flights

 

On Thursday, 24 November from 00:01 to 23:59 hours (CET) on all short-haul and long-haul flights

 

On Friday, 25 November from 00:01 to 23:59 hours (CET) on all short-haul flights

The strike announcement concerns flights operated by Lufthansa. Flights operated by Lufthansa CityLine may also be impacted by the strike action. Flights operated by Germanwings, Eurowings, Air Dolomiti, Austrian Airlines, SWISS and Brussels Airlines are not affected by the strike measures and will continue to operate normally.

On Friday, all long-haul flights from the hubs in Frankfurt and Munich will be operating as scheduled. By noon today, a special flight schedule for short- and medium-haul flights within Germany and Europe will be finalized and all necessary flight cancellations will have been made.

All passengers are requested to check the status of their flight at LH.com before setting out on their journey. Lufthansa passengers who have saved their mobile phone number in their customer profile will be notified about relevant cancellations by text message.

 

Germany’s pilot union said it planned another 24-hour walkout at Lufthansa on Thursday, after strikes announced for Wednesday led to the cancellation of roughly a third of all flights of the German airline. The union in a statement said all of Lufthansa’s short and long-haul flights out of Germany will be affected by the continued industrial action, planned to run until 2259 GMT on Thursday.

 

The strike is the 14th to hit the airline in its long-running pay dispute with the Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) union.

 

Lufthansa said Wednesday’s strike has resulted in the cancellation of 876 of roughly 3,000 flights, affecting about 100,000 passengers and the airline’s chief executive said walkouts would cost the airline high single-digit million euro amounts each day. The union announced the latest strikes following a German court’s rejection of an injunction Lufthansa had asked for to halt strikes last-minute on Tuesday night.