Business Travel News - issue 1

Welcome to the first weekly newsletter from Global Travel Management covering some of the week's most important and interesting items concerning business and corporate travel.

In the last few days, the Foreign Office has attempted to clear up confusion about passports.???

Its advice has been updated - and corrected - as it had previously published information that was causing airlines to turn away passengers when their passports were, in fact, fully valid.??

Previously, the FCDO website stated that your passport “may” need to be less than ten years old “during your whole visit”.??

The (correct) advice now on the Foreign Office website states:?

If you are planning to travel to an EU country (except Ireland), or Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino or Vatican City, you must follow the Schengen area passport requirements.?

Your passport must be:?

• issued less than 10 years before the date you enter the country (check the ‘date of issue’)
• valid for at least 3 months after the day you plan to leave (check the ‘expiry date’)?

You must check your passport meets these requirements before you travel. If your passport was issued before 1 October 2018, extra months may have been added to its expiry date.?

Our advice is:

• Check when your passport was last issued - and do this as soon as possible?
• Check the expiry date - it needs still to be valid three months after you intend to return to the UK?
• Ask all of your colleagues to do the same (perhaps by forwarding this email)?

With a busy Summer of travel coming up, it’s better to be safely on board than sorry, because you’re unexpectedly having to head home from the airport.?

Air France KLM has announced a codeshare agreement with Indian low-cost airline IndiGo.??

This partnership will provide access to 30 destinations in India for Air France KLM customers.?So, if your work takes you to India, there’s now a simpler way to reach your destination, with the added benefit of accruing more miles with Air France KLM’s Flying Blue rewards programme.??

It's worth checking out which airline rewards programmes you are signed up to, especially when codeshare announcements are made.??

And don’t forget to make sure your frequent flyer membership details are held by Global Travel Management, so we can ensure your miles are added to your memberships.

Finally, there is interesting news in the United States, where three airlines are battling in a takeover and merger situation.?

JetBlue Airways have written to shareholders of Spirit Airlines telling them to reject an approach from rival Frontier Airlines and, instead accept JetBlue’s hostile offer of $30 a share.?Spirit shareholders may not be impressed, since Jetblue offered $33 a share two weeks ago.?

The three airlines are now locked in battle and it will be interesting to see how this pans out - and what the effect will be on routes, fares and prices in the US domestic air market.??

Are the passport requirements sufficiently clear now that the Foreign Office have changed their website? Will the codeshare between Air France KLM and IndiGo prove popular? Who will win the tussle between JetBlue, Spirit and Frontier, and does it signal a change in the fortunes of airlines across the world? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Travel safely!