July’s global IT outage impacted everything from cloud services, financial institutions and e-commerce websites to airlines, shipping companies and essential online tools, causing widespread inconvenience for businesses and individuals alike.
For travel management companies like ATPI, a robust response was required on three primary fronts; maintaining access to internal systems; keeping client communications open; and organising alternative arrangements for seafarers facing flight delays and cancellations.
According to Mina Kanaki, the Operations & Supplier Relations Manager at ATPI Greece, an extensive Business Continuity Plan and the readiness of our team to go the extra mile ensured that we were able continue supporting clients and travellers.
“It was a unique situation, but thanks to the prompt response across our global IT, any interruption was minimized,” she said. “The IT teams stopped the CrowdStrike update auto-deployment and managed to keep many office devices unaffected.”
Lines of communication
This initial reaction was the foundation that enabled the ATPI Marine Travel team to support clients who were facing their own extreme operational conditions.
“We communicated with clients via the telephone and emails and contacted airlines to find the most suitable solution for affected travellers. There were countless cancelled or delayed flights, but we were able to quickly find alternative options to get our clients’ employees home or to their ships,” Mina added.
Prepared for the unexpected
With so many moving parts and our responsibility for booking more than 0.75 million seafarer commutes every year, ATPI is always well prepared for the unexpected. And while our business continuity plan was rolled-out, our staff gave us an extra edge in terms of customer service.
Mina made it clear that, “the team’s experience and passion was a key factor in providing the best service under these circumstances. We prioritised urgent and short-term challenges to, so they were handled in a timely fashion, and ensured that clients were updated along the way.”
Dealing with the immediate challenges also meant that a backlog of not so urgent bookings started to build up, but once again, the dedication and professionalism of ATPI employees shone through.
“On the Saturday, we brought in extra staff to help cover any requirements, which ensured that, we were able to minimise any issues when getting back into our normal daily routine,” concluded Mina.
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