Business Travel News - January 26, 2009 - (Page 1)

JANUARY 26, 2009 INSIDE Airfare Trends Follow Fuel Cost Decline . . . . . 3 United To Add Transcon Inflight Wi-Fi. . . . . . 4 Tech Provider To Boost Online Rail Access . . 6 Auctions Blocked, DOT Seeks LGA Cuts . . . 29 TSA Preps Secure Flight Launch. . . . . . . . . 34 6 10 CHARGING UP INAUGURATING WESTINGHOUSE OPTIMISM Dan Cooper powers TMC consolidation, tech deployment. Amex’s Andy McGraw upbeat about challenges. BTNonline.com ONE-ON-ONE DELTA CEO RICHARD ANDERSON Delta Adds Corp. Sales Resources Buyers Find Room On Rates BY MICHAEL B. BAKER With negotiations for 2009 hotel rates largely complete, buyers and conDelta CEO Richard Anderson this month sultants are reporting success in staving off increases in domestic rates, spoke with BTN editor-in-chief David Meyeven in major gateway cities, as er and senior editor Jay Boehmer to discuss hoteliers face a bleak demand outDelta’s integration with Northwest Airlines, look of indeterminate length. the merged carrier’s approach to the corpo“I asked for the world, and I was rate market and plans to further develop a able to apparently get a piece of it,” Preliminary Year-Over-Year joint venture with Air France-KLM. said Patricia Carlin, purchasing manChange In 2009 Rates BTN: Does the current environment change ager for global card and travel for your approach to the corporate market? Dublin, Calif.-based Sybase. Within North America -3% to 3% Richard Anderson: We have the network, the United States, Carlin mostly was Europe -1% to 4% we have the commitment to customer service able to get rates equal to or lower Latin America 5% to 15% and we have a financially strong airline. Those than 2008 levels, and she also set up Asia/Pacific 10% to 15% three things really are evidence of the commultiyear agreements with several mitment we have to our corporate customers and the importance that they U.S. hotels. Outside the United Middle East 15% to 25% serve in our business. We’ve put a really strong sales organization in place States was slightly more difficult, Source: Advito Continued on page 8 with Jim Cron and Steve Sear, and we’ve actually been adding a lot of resources to our corporate sales organization, and we’ll continue to make those investments. BTN: What are those resources? Anderson: Jim and Steve are in the process more heavily on ancillary revenue streams to fill of adding 30 people to the combined sales force, BY SETH HARRIS New and rising travel management company the gap in covering their account management so we’re actually adding staffing to our corpoContinued on page 32 data and reporting service charges are spurring costs. Travel management company executives concerns among busi- and consultants said there is no across-the-board ness travel buyers effort to raise prices of data and reporting servicwho have seen those es, but fewer transactions are driving some agenservices traditionally cies to raise costs for any new services, particularincluded in contracts. ly for those most in demand from buyers, such as With travel transac- more detailed and frequent reporting. tions dropping, many “Many TMCs will shoulder some portion of that travel management cost, given a sufficient transaction level, but if ◆ ◆ Continued on page 33 companies are relying N. AMERICA, EUROPE HOTEL RATE HIKES EASE Rising TMC Data, Reporting Costs Spark Buyers’ Concern Postmaster: Newspaper Handling/Periodicals Postaage Richard Anderson John Arenas Gerard Arpey Philippe Bruyère ◆ Duncan Bureau ◆ Dennis Cary John Chambers ◆ Janice Chang ◆ Michael Chertoff Maurice de Rohan ◆ Sam Gilliland ◆ Patrick Grady Kathy Hall-Zientek ◆ Kip Hawley ◆ Gary Kelly Susan Lichtenstein ◆ Wolfgang Mayrhuber ◆ Kevin Mitchell ◆ Diarmuid O’Scannlain ◆ Guillaume Pepy Michael Reynolds ◆ Randy Smith ◆ Megan Stowe Robert Sturgell ◆ Anré Williams For more, see page 14 http://www.BTNonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Business Travel News - January 26, 2009

Business Travel News - January 26, 2009
Contents
Inside Track
Profiles In Travel Mgmt
Forum
The 25 Most Influential Corp. Travel Execs, 2008
Expense/Payment
Lodging
Destinations
Washington Wire

Business Travel News - January 26, 2009