Air Partner and Smile Group Travel team up to fly county cricket clubs to Barbados

Air Partner - 14 mar 2017

Air Partner, the global aviation services group, has teamed up with Smile Group Travel, a tour operator specialising in sports travel, to organise return flights to Barbados for three county cricket clubs in March. The teams from Hampshire, Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire are heading to the Caribbean island for their pre-season tour, which will consist of training and a number of friendly matches against local teams.

Smile called upon Air Partner Travel Management Company (Air Partner TMC) to provide a bespoke solution that was tailored to the needs of the clubs: this included competitive ticket fares, an easy booking process and a generous luggage allowance for each of the 63 passengers, which was necessary to transport all the cricket kit. Air Partner TMC was also able to secure the player's seats on flights that flew in and out of the clubs' local airports (Manchester for Nottinghamshire and London Gatwick for Hampshire and Northamptonshire) for extra convenience.

Both Air Partner and Smile have extensive experience working with the sports community. Smile offers tours all over the world for all kinds of sports, including cricket, netball, hockey, rugby, swimming and tennis, to name a few. In addition, the tour operator organises trips for supporters to follow major sporting events.

For its part, Air Partner has worked with the sports industry for over 50 years and has a comprehensive understanding of the travel needs of sportspeople, their teams and fans. In 2016 alone, the European team transported a total of over 21,400 passengers on over 350 flights to 130 destinations globally for various sporting events.

Katie Daw, Trading Manager at Air Partner TMC, commented: "It was a pleasure working with the experienced team at Smile, who share our in-depth knowledge of sports travel. We work with a number of travel operators, who rely on us to provide customised and comprehensive solutions to their clients' flying requirements. Every project is different and our team works around the clock to ensure that specific requests are met – in this case, making sure the clubs have a big enough luggage allowance for all their kit."

Louise Dupree, Operations Manager at Smile Group Travel, said: "When arranging travel logistics for our clients, it's of the utmost importance to us that we work with suppliers who share our values in terms of customer service. Arranging flights with Air Partner TMC was a very smooth and easy process, and our clients were extremely happy with the outcome – especially that they are all booked onto the flights they wanted from the airports they wanted."

Enquiries:
Temple Bar Advisory (PR Advisor to Air Partner): 020 7002 1080
Tom Allison: 07789 998 020
Alycia MacAskill: 07776 253 482