BTA Industry Partner Newsletter - December by The BTA

INDUSTRY PARTNER UPDATES

Employee experience, end-to-end integration and virtual payments take centre stage.

Download this paper by Forrester and get insights on:

The top priorities for corporations today; including increasing efficiencies, improving the employee experience and collaboration, and meeting sustainability objectives

How T&E processes and tools can help achieve these priorities

The main benefits companies gain from automated T&E tools, including virtual payments The main challenges faced by travel and expense leaders, along with top employee complaints

About the paper

This research was conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Amadeus, published in November 2022. It’s based on qualitative interviews and a survey carried out amongst 525 respondents between July and August 2022 The participants include manager level and above decision-makers from finance, procurement, travel management, HR and IT involved in travel and expense management at large enterprises

The future of work is here. Can your corporate customers T&E keep up?

ANA Receives 5-Star Rating from SKYTRAX for the 10th Consecutive Year

ANA (All Nippon Airways), recently received the prestigious 5-Star designation from the London-based airline rating company, SKYTRAX. The “World Airline Star Rating” is based on a rigorous audit of each airline’s in-flight and airport service quality standards and 5-Star ratings are awarded to airlines that consistently provide high-quality service. Only 10 airlines in the world have received the highest rating of “5-Star”, with ANA the only airline in Japan that has maintained the 5-Star rating for 10 consecutive years.

ANA Future Promise Recognised By CDP and Dow Jones

ANA has been recognised for leadership in corporate transparency and performance on climate change by global environmental non-profit organisation CDP, securing a place on its annual ‘A List’, for the first time

ANA’s target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (CO2) has now been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), an international organisation that promotes and supports corporations to establish science-based targets for reducing greenhouse gas (CO2) emissions As the first airline in Asia to receive the approval, ANA HD will continue to strengthen its ESG management toward its goal of reaching net zero by FY2050.

ANA has also been selected as a member of the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index (DJSI) list for the 6th consecutive year and the Dow Jones Sustainability Asia Pacific Index list for the 7th consecutive year Dow Jones praised ANA for its corporate sustainability efforts including its passenger safety, human rights, environmental reporting, information security, and supply chain management

Rolls-Royce and easyJet Set New Aviation World First With Successful Hydrogen Engine Run

Rolls-Royce and easyJet have set a new aviation milestone with the world’s first run of a modern aero engine on hydrogen The ground test was conducted on an early concept demonstrator using green hydrogen created by wind and tidal power. It marks a major step towards proving that hydrogen could be a zero carbon aviation fuel of the future and is a key proof point in the decarbonisation strategies of both Rolls-Royce and easyJet

Both companies have set out to prove that hydrogen can safely and efficiently deliver power for civil aero engines and are already planning a second set of tests, with a longer-term ambition to carry out flight tests

TripStax set to acquire Hotelzon

Strategic move bolsters the TripStax tech offering with hotel content and booking solution

TripStax, the dynamic business travel technology disruptor, has signed an agreement to acquire Hotelzon

Established in 1972, Hotelzon is a leading B2B hotel booking platform providing efficient tools for over 370,000 users globally, including travel agencies, corporations and event management companies, to simplify the corporate hotel booking process. Over 1.5M properties are available on Hotelzon from multiple content sources including Booking com and Expedia Since 2014 Hotelzon has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Travelport

The strategic acquisition of Hotelzon will enable TripStax to bolster its tech offering of connected proprietary business travel modules with a fully integrated hotel booking tool for TMCs and corporates direct Furthermore, the acquisition will mean TripStax can consume and manage hotel booking data from multiple channels within its existing TripStax Content module for the first time This module already aggregates and normalises air content from GDS and non-GDS sources via a single API

The agreement also establishes a long-term strategic relationship between TripStax and Travelport whereby Hotelzon will continue to generate hotel bookings on Travelport+.

Launched to market earlier this year, TripStax is a fully connected modular stack of proprietary travel tech tools for TMCs It is driven by ‘The Core’, a central data processing powerhouse which consumes, manages and enriches profile, booking and finance data across each module Hotelzon will be integrated as an additional module complementing the existing cutting-edge applications used by TripStax customers, which include Analytics, Approve, Content, Docs, Mobile, Portal, Profile, and Track.

2022 has been a year to remember for many, so we thought we’d look back at some of our highlights

We were so excited to celebrate our first new US route since 2017, with a four-times-weekly service between London Heathrow and Austin, Texas. And from spring next year, it’ll be daily. We also launched a new service every day of the week to Tampa, Florida - the only one to fly direct between London’s hub airport, Heathrow and Tampa Bay.

A firm favourite with customers, we were just as thrilled to be restarting our daily services to the fabulous city of Cape Town, home to spectacular wildlife, out-of-this-world scenery and the most culturally diverse cities on the planet The new flights run until 24th March 2023 and complement our popular year-round service to Johannesburg.

The first two of our fourteen beautiful A330neo aircraft joined the family, elevating our onboard experience with its instantly iconic Upper Class social space, The Retreat Suite, and increased connectivity throughout, with our fastest ever WiFi These next-generation planes reaffirm our commitment to flying the cleanest, most fuel-efficient fleet in the sky, as we continue our mission to net zero carbon emissions by 2050

In the first half of 2022, we agreed a UK supply of 2 5 million litres/2,000 metric tonnes of neat Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) from Neste and ExxonMobil Our ambition is to increase our use of SAF to at least 10% by 2030 as we strive to lower emissions and reach net Zero

We announced that in early 2023 we’ll be joining SkyTeam, the Global Airline Alliance, giving customers seamless access to an even larger global route network, and more opportunities to earn and spend their points.

We joined forces with two new partners: we announced a codeshare agreement with LATAM, the South American airline, giving our mutual customers the opportunity to fly seamlessly to the South American country of Brazil with direct service from London Heathrow to São Paulo as well as connecting onwards to 12 domestic airports.

And our newest partner, India’s biggest airline IndiGo, offers seamless connections via Delhi and Mumbai to seven additional cities

At Virgin Atlantic, we ’ ve always been proud to champion individuality Of our people, our amazing customers, and the brilliant partners we work with – like you A dazzling collection of unique characters who march to their own drumbeat and fly their own path, coming together to say “I am what I am ” This campaign is also supported by actions, like changing the rules around wearing make-up and not showing tattoos, because travel is one of life’s great joys – but only if everyone can be themselves

And last, but by no means least, we've been winning awards and we're honoured to receive them! We are delighted to be recognised as:

World's Best Business Class Lounge by Skytrax

· World's Best Premium Economy Class by Skytrax

Best Premium Economy Class by Business Traveller

Together, we ’ ve achieved tremendous things, and we can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2023

Thank you for your continued support and partnership Here’s to a brand new year filled with more opportunities to travel.

Best wishes from everyone at Virgin Atlantic