A memo from our corporate travel group:
Effective June 1st, 2008. United Airlines has made the decision to terminate our corporate contract due to non performance. All upfront discounts will terminate June 1st.
As we move forward we must focus on utilizing our preferred vendors when traveling on company business, we can not afford to lose the discounts that we receive annually by contracting with preferred vendors.
Our preferred airline vendors are DELTA, CONTINENTAL AND AMERICAN. As a reminder, all reservations are to be booked through the travel department; this includes all airline tickets (Southwest, Alaska, Frontier, USAir, and Northwest). Please do not book any airline reservations on-line, this is against company policy.
The “corporate contract” was basically, “We get discounts, you get lots of travel from our people.” Given that of United’s main hubs — Denver, Chicaco, Dulles, San Francisco, Los Angeles — only the latter is a key corporate location for us, it’s not surprising that we don’t generate enough traffic for them (esp. in these belt-tightening times).
So what does this mean to me? Well, actually, living in a United hub, it probably doesn’t mean that much. I suspect the company travel agency (which I religiously use, being both a good corporate drone and not wanting to have to explain why I didn’t when I submit an expense report) will try to guide to one of the three preferred vendors, but they represent only a handful of flights a day out of Denver, meaning that schedule needs will (should) trump contractual needs.
We’ll see what happens, though, next time I fly on business.