Nearly all Global Travel Group members have moved across to the Travel Network Group following completion of the acquisition this week.
TTNG chief executive Gary Lewis said that only a small number of members had not transferred due to decisions to close due to the Covid-19 pandemic or administrative reasons.
“99.9% are moving across,” he said. “There were some members that were at the point of renegotiating their arrangements at the beginning and at the end, and we weren’t in a position to be able to support that process. So you’ve probably had one or two that have gone because of that.
“And you’ve also had a couple who have closed because of the crisis, just the pandemic. But all in all, Global members have been incredibly engaged and very supportive of the process and that is because dnata have enabled us to have those conversations.”
He added: “We have been able to address any worries and concerns and I think we’ve already got a very engaged membership.”
Speaking on a Travel Weekly webcast, Lewis said Global members had already been getting “huge engagement from senior management and other people throughout the [deal] process”.
“They have already had real engagement from us thanks to the trust we have with [dnata chief executive] John Bevan, which allowed us to have conversations with the members.
“But fundamentally what happens from now is they get access to all the propositions that we offer the TTNG. So the marketing propositions, the support, etc.”
Lewis said Global members had been involved in the TTNG’s new Restart Reconnect campaign.
“Global members were involved in the campaign for the whole of the Travel Network Group. So engaging them to recognise and let go of this crisis and engaging them in the trading relationships with our business partners,” he said.
“We can already see how engaged they are from their support for the Restart Reconnect Zoom conferences that we’ve held in the last two weeks.”
Lewis said that TTNG was now overseeing Global Travel Group commercials but added that these would be brought in line within the wider group in time as the greater number of agents strengthened its hand in negotiations.
“Those [existing] commercials will carry on for now, but then they’ll be part of our renegotiation across the whole of the Travel Network Group from a commercial perspective,” he said.