We are aware that our Travel Provider, Key Travel, has recently been struggling with a large increase in demand and may not have responded in the expected way over the past few weeks. This is in common with the wider travel sector and we wanted to update you on the pressures they face and the actions being taken in this area:
Issues faced by Travel Providers
- Booking volumes are increasing at unforeseen rates and supply chains supporting the travel management companies (hotels, airlines, car hire etc) are also not operating at full capacity and are also struggling with recruitment.
- The war in Ukraine has resulted in more complicated arrangements to accommodate no-fly zones and re-routed travel, as well as efforts to extract individuals from the conflict area
- A significant chunk of Key Travel staff have been reallocated on a temporary basis to repatriate travellers in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus which has reduced service levels – this is not likely to be a long lasting state of operation.
- Due to a considerable number of changes in restrictions and regulations globally, the offline bookings have spiked, tipping the balance to more offline than online, even with experienced travellers.
Actions being taken to alleviate the situation
- Starting this week, Key Travel have added 4 urgent travel staff to their team and added an Option 5 in the call routing for emergency travel ; if you are in an emergency circumstance, please use this option to gain near-immediate assistance.
- Additional staff are also scheduled to join the Key Travel service team in the coming months. The travel sector as a whole has had significant staffing issues during Covid and is recruiting at pace to return to pre-Covid staffing levels.
Alternative short-term solutions
If you attempt to book using Key Travel and find that they are not answering calls or responding to emails in a timely fashion, then on a temporary basis only, you can book outside of Key Travel. You must complete the Travel Exceptions Forms and register the trip for the University’s travel insurance coverage using the online forms which are found here.