Agent Diary: How a flurry of late bookings saw us hit our target after a quiet June

Spear Travels Wolverhampton branch manager Kim Kent recounts a challenging month

We are so lucky to have Birmingham airport on our doorstep, and for many years my customers have only ever wanted to fly from there as it is so close. But with all the disruption recently, we have found many just don’t want the hassle and, for now, are reluctantly switching to alternative airports such as East Midlands and Manchester.

We all appreciate that work on upgrading the airport must happen and takes time, but for a while it seemed to be one thing after another. We sympathise, but it’s our customers who have been reporting “utter chaos” when they’ve flown from there, including the length of time it has taken to drop bags off and get through security.

It’s been tough for those with young families and the elderly, who find it difficult to stand for hours, but in fairness to the airport, the changes are essential and will benefit all of us. They are doing what they can to ease the congestion, and in some cases you can drop your bags off the night before you travel.

New scanners being fitted seems to have caused renewed confusion, especially when it comes to the 100ml liquids rule, but this isn’t limited to Birmingham. It’s up to the government to provide clarity on this, so let’s hope we get that from the new ministers.

The good news is that recent social media reports suggest the queues at Birmingham are improving and waiting times are gradually reducing. I don’t think we are out of the woods yet, but it looks like we could be over the worst of things. I am flying from Birmingham this week so I certainly hope that’s the case.

Challenging month

It would seem that passengers aren’t completely sure what they will be met with when they arrive at the airport, which leads me to our June sales, which were very hard to predict. Much of the month was very quiet, possibly due to uncertainty around the general election.

We were all working hard to attract attention on social media and through our window displays, offering different destinations and cost-effective late bookings, but by week three we were way behind last year’s sales. The bad weather was prompting customers to come in for quotes, but none of them were going through with booking.

By the last Saturday of the month, we had achieved just 68% of our target and thought there was no chance of hitting it. There were only two of us in the shop that day and, to our delight, the first call was from a tour operator advising us that the wait list for a deluxe suite on the Rovos Rail Cape Town to Dar es Salaam, which had been on request since March, had cleared.

Our client was so thrilled when we told him that he came in at once to confirm the £52,000 booking! From there the day only got better, with numerous other big bookings made.

Miraculously, by 3pm we only had £600 left to hit target. Tongue in cheek, I said to Emma, “Don’t worry, someone will come in and book in the next 30 minutes” and, lo and behold, in walked four customers wanting a group holiday to Sicily. After a few phone calls, they made a £6,700 booking.

Unlike poor England in the Euros final, we did get it over the line!

No power to the people

Some clients caught up in the Manchester airport power outage said it was chaos. They were told their flight to Singapore would depart on time but without luggage. Then, after they’d been sat on the plane for four hours, it was announced that the pilot was out of hours, so they would have to stay overnight at the airport.

The following day a similar thing happened, but this time there was no water for the flight and again they had to stay in Manchester overnight. On day three they departed but had missed all their connections. This is nobody’s fault, just a set of unfortunate circumstances that sadly impacted some of our clients’ getaways.