Improving our crew’s arrival at Heathrow

On Friday 1 March key shoreside leads from our People & Procurement teams visited our hotel partner, Radisson RED, at London Heathrow where they met with their team and discussed how to make our crew’s experience even better. Not only did they visit the hotel to discuss improvements, they selected 89 crew heading to join Iona to test out and trial a new transfer solution, with the aim to improve the crew experience when arriving at London Heathrow and travelling to the Radisson RED hotel.

We care about our seafarers’ health and wellbeing from the moment they leave their home to stepping onboard our ships. That’s why we always look for opportunities to improve the crew experience and we successfully secured a test trial of an alternative transfer provider in place of the ‘Hoppa Bus’ at London Heathrow. – Ellie Fishwick, Fleet People Operations Director

The alternative transfer provider is called ‘WeKnow London’ and on 1 March, they had CUK representatives in Terminal 3 and 4 at London Heathrow to meet and greet our crew and CUK representatives at Radisson RED, ready to obtain feedback.

Unlike WeKnow, which operates an on-demand service, the Hotel Hoppa’s timetable results in journey times of a best case of 20 mins and a worst case of 1 hour 45 minutes. Today if the ‘Hoppa Bus’ arrives and is full, our crew member would need to wait at the terminal for the next service to arrive or alternatively transit to another terminal to wait for next service.

Who are ‘WeKnow London’

• Heathrow Airport onsite and licensed Private Hire Car Transfer Service
• A Meet & Greet service with WeKnow Travel Services & Information Desks in all Heathrow Arrival Terminals
• Operate largest fleet of luxury, fully electric vehicles available at London Heathrow; to date operated 301,160 miles of fully electric vehicle journeys saving 78 tons of CO2
• Ability to track flight arrivals to support delays or operational changes; operating an on-demand service
• All drivers undergo enhanced DBS and medical checks

High level feedback from our crew that tested the provider:

• 92% of crew reported wait time of less than 20 minutes.
• The overall satisfaction of the service was well received; with most crew scoring the experience as ‘very satisfied’.
• Very positive customer service feedback for the drivers and observed drivers assisting crew with luggage.
• Quality of the experience and  quality of vehicles were quoted as ‘Excellent’.

Following the trial, the People and Procurement teams will be working with the supplier to discuss contractual terms and agree how the service can be introduced to improve our crew journey. More news will come on this when they’ve agreed next steps.