Air Partner to arrange hosted buyer flights to IMEX 2016 for fifth consecutive year

05 Apr 2016

Air Partner’s Travel division, which specialises in providing expert advice and support for scheduled airline travel, is working with IMEX to arrange hosted buyer flights for the 2016 exhibition in Frankfurt for the fifth consecutive year.

IMEX is a worldwide exhibition for incentive travel, meetings and events. As part of the event, a Hosted Buyer Programme is offered, providing travel and accommodation for qualifying buyers. This has been specifically designed to encourage high-calibre buyers to visit IMEX, the largest meetings and incentive travel exhibition in the world.

Air Partner will also attend IMEX 2016 in its own professional capacity, exhibiting on stand G220. For the second year running, the team will host a nail bar at the stand so that visitors will be able to enjoy a free manicure while finding out more about Air Partner’s charter flights, scheduled tickets and inflight services. They will also be able to refresh themselves with a fruit smoothie, which will be served 11am-12pm every day as part of the IMEX Wellbeing programme.

Air Partner’s Commercial Jet and Travel divisions – which offer charter flights, scheduled tickets or a combination of both - have been a significant player in the MICE industry for over 50 years and understand that when organising a conference or promotional event, getting guests there in style is critically important. Air Partner has worked with event planners in every part of the world for all imaginable types of event, operating as a one-stop shop for flights, transfers and accommodation. Air Partner is increasingly combining scheduled tickets with private charters for its clients, as this is often the most cost-effective option: for example, this may involve flying groups of passengers on scheduled flights from different locations to one central airport where they can all board the same chartered aircraft.

The benefits of charter flights on such occasions are numerous. Clients are able to fly large numbers of passengers directly to destinations that might otherwise not be served by scheduled services, and on a date and time of their choosing. For bigger groups, off airport check-in can be arranged at the hotel to make the process as efficient and stress-free as possible. Air Partner is also able to provide a personalised experience both at the airport and on-board, enabling travel time to become part of the brand experience: this can range from the use or display of a client’s products and logo all the way through to an onboard magician. Branded headrests are the most popular request as they provide an instant ‘wow’ factor for everyone boarding the plane, although Air Partner can arrange any small touches a client wishes. Requests fulfilled last year included black toilet paper in the toilets, amenity kits personalised with the passengers’ names and the playing of disco music throughout a client’s flight to create a “party” atmosphere.

During its decades in the industry, Air Partner has received hugely complex client requests but no brief is too demanding; it is the team’s job to make the impossible possible. For example, in 2016, a German IT company tasked Air Partner with transporting of 200 of its employees on an incentive trip - without ever revealing the location. The dedicated team went to great lengths to keep the journey shrouded in mystery, arranging for the destination name to be faded out on the check in monitors and obscured on all the boarding passes. All of those involved in the trip - such as the flight crew and handling agents - were fully briefed beforehand and it was made sure that no revealing airport announcements were made. The undercover mission was a complete success, with the passengers only finding out where they were going upon touch-down.