This summer has been one of the most chaotic periods on record for air travel. During the July 4th weekend alone, over 1,000 flights were canceled and 12,000 were delayed. And unfortunately, that chaos may not be ending anytime soon.
We have plenty of recommendations that can help you keep your travel as stress-free as possible––arriving earlier than usual for your flights, signing up for apps like Tripcase that will keep you up to date on your flight status, and packing your essentials in a carry-on case to ensure nothing crucial gets lost in transit. But even the best preparation won’t necessarily protect you from being affected during this unprecedented moment of travel chaos.
That’s where we come in: our Hayes Locums travel team has decades of experience navigating the intricacies of travel management.
Here’s how Hayes Locums can keep your travel on track:
Staying on top of your travel itinerary, so you don’t have to
When the travel team makes a reservation for a provider, our professional system also links that itinerary to the Tripcase account of that provider’s consultant. That means you don’t have to constantly check your itinerary for changes––instead, you can rest easy knowing that we’re on top of it.
Consultants receive live messages relating to their provider’s itineraries, so in the event of any changes, they’ll be the first to know. If your flight is delayed or canceled, your consultant will be notified immediately, so they can get in touch with you and talk about next steps.
In one recent example, a provider was scheduled on a two-leg itinerary with only a short layover between each flight. The day of the flight, the provider’s consultant received a notification on his Tripcase account that the first flight would be delayed. As he was coordinating with the travel team on possible alternate arrangements, he received a notification that the second leg was delayed as well.
Before that provider even arrived at the airport for his first flight, his consultant had already contacted him to let him know that the first flight was delayed, and assure him that it wouldn’t affect his making the assignment on time, since he would still have time to make his connecting flight.
Working quickly to reschedule you if your flights are changed or delayed
We’ve all been there: a flight gets canceled, and you have to wait in an endless line, or stay on the phone for hours, just to get rebooked. With Hayes, you don’t have to worry about standing in line or waiting on the phone. That’s our job.
Because of their knowledge of the industry, our travel team is always prepared for any potential interruptions, so they can move quickly to accommodate you if you run into any trouble. They often receive first bid on replacement flights, so they can rebook you as quickly and as easily as possible, without you having to lift a finger.
Building relationships with travel industry professionals
Like so many other sides of our work, relationship building is central to make sure your travel runs smoothly. Our team has built relationships with people across the travel industry for years, so when problems arise, we know just who to call.
Let’s say your flight gets delayed while you’re on your way to an assignment in a rural location, and is now landing after the car rental agency has closed. Our team has relationships with these agencies, so we can often work it out so that someone can meet you when you arrive, even if it’s after hours.
These relationships were integral throughout COVID: rental agencies went to great lengths to make sure that our physicians were able to get to their assignments. That sometimes included pulling cars from twenty miles away to deliver to our doctors so they could make it to the facility to help patients in need.
Those same relationships are now helping us navigate this period of travel chaos, enabling us to move quickly in making alternate arrangements so that our providers can get to their patients on time. It’s rare for there to be a scenario where we can’t accommodate a physician, and that’s because of the relationships that we’ve built.
Despite the chaos of this moment, our travel team always has their eye on the future and their finger on the pulse of the industry, so that they’re fully prepared to support and accommodate physicians who may experience interruptions to their travel. That means you can put your mind at ease, knowing that Hayes Locums has your back.
