Navigating Through Disruption: Supporting Travelers During the Heathrow Shutdown

The Solution

Within hours of the airport closure announcement, Traveler Care leadership activated the emergency response protocols already in place to help us respond efficiently when incidents occur. The first step was to rapidly identify affected travelers across all solutions. Every two hours, leadership met and collaborated across the business to resource and enact recovery plans quickly, and as a cohesive unit. With the internal teams aligned for problem solving resolution, our tech teams mobilized to support Traveler Care by enabling flex capacity. We launched a comprehensive triage process, which prioritized traveler urgency, destination alternatives, and itinerary risk assessment. Traveler Care resources were also expanded to support through the weekend. This included bringing in people for overtime, adding additional staff, expanding to use resources outside of the UK to take on additional volume, and mobilizing our tech teams to enable travel counselors to support the additional call volumes.

The customer care response demonstrated Amex GBT's commitment to traveler support and trusted partnership with our clients:

• About 18,000 Amex GBT travelers impacted.³
• Friday's traveler call volume was up 193% in the UK.⁴
• 150 additional support staff were brought in to help through the weekend.⁵
• Over 700 hours of overtime were added.⁵

Technology and Capacity in Action

Our technology-driven approach became our greatest asset:

• Flex capacity immediately deployed to high-need support regions.
• Advanced rebooking tools activated to minimize traveler disruption.
• Proactive risk management strategies preserved operational integrity.