Profiles In Travel Management: Co. Gains In-House Staff

Company: The Delta Companies
Headquarters: Dallas
Annual Air VolumE: $1.5 million

The Delta Companies, a Dallas-based healthcare staffing and recruiting firm, has reaped savings and increased operational efficiencies after it transitioned to a full-time in-house travel management configuration. The fledgling program is poised for growth as it handles an increasing travel budget, which has enabled the company to participate in airline incentive programs, leverage supplier relationships and explore becoming an Airlines Reporting Corp.-accredited Corporate Travel Department.

While Delta passes much of its travel bill to individual hospitals or medical facilities, its travel configuration garnered an overall savings of $92,979 in 2006, and the company projects a savings increase of 36 percent to $126,535 in 2007.

Delta Companies travel manager Stacy Collins attributes the savings to incentives from preferred car rental supplier Hertz, "waivers and favors" from the airlines, use of nonrefundable tickets, avoiding agency fees by allowing employees to explore direct online bookings with vendors and the experience of Dallas-based TravelFocus' agents, who provide 24-hour call center, reservation fulfillment and reporting services.

In its first year in a three-year agency contract with TravelFocus, Delta renegotiated to what amounts to $11 per transaction without the use of an online booking tool.

"We don't ask a lot of them, but they give us a very reasonable transaction fee, which is passed along to the hospitals," said Collins.

Delta also has leveraged its continually increasing travel spending with suppliers. Collins contracted with the American Airlines Business ExtrAA Program, which provides travel awards and incentives for travel on American and regional feeder partner airlines American Eagle and AmericanConnection. The program also drives compliance by allowing traveling employees to earn AAdvantage miles.

The travel department manages travel for 125 of Delta's 180 employees, and external healthcare professionals including physicians, pharmacists and laboratory technicians who are placed or recruited for positions at medical facilities nationwide. U.S. booked air volume in 2006 was about $1.5 million for 3,282 transactions and Collins projects a full-year 2007 U.S. booked air spending of $1.8 million for 3,950 transactions.

While most air travel originates at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, a sizable portion goes to rural U.S. areas, for which Collins and the other Delta travel managers book directly online with airlines including Southwest, AirTran Airways and Great Lakes Airlines.

Meanwhile, the Delta travel team has built efficiencies in the program with a lenient policy that is flexible for travelers who have personal preferences for air and hotel suppliers, like its traveling physicians.

"We have a travel profile form that we send out to them before they take the assignments, so they can list their preferred airlines and frequent flyer numbers and hotel information," said Whitney Ripple, risk management travel coordinator for Delta Locum Tenens, one of the company's five business units, who also handles hotel bookings and negotiations. "On the physician travel side, we typically try to cater to their needs and to their requests. If they really like United Airlines and if they have frequent flyer numbers, we try to set them up on that as a first choice."

Collins said the Delta travel policy allows flexibility in booking the cheapest rates for travelers, but some approval policies are in place. "If it's over $850 for the recruiters, then we have to get it approved," she said. "As for the doctors, we definitely try and get the best deal, but we are going to be billing the hospital back for the cost. As long as they are aware of the cost, we don't stress over that too much."

Ripple said the Locum Tenens division has a stricter policy of not booking more than 30 days in advance because of potential charges incurred for a change in travel plans or ticket cancellation fees.

Hotels typically are booked directly online via Collins' team for traveling physicians.

"If it's an area that we are not familiar with or haven't worked in before, occasionally we will get with the facility or hospital they are working with first and ask if they have any suggestions," according to Ripple. "A lot of times, the hospitals will have a negotiated rate or corporate account set up. We have found better deals than what they've had before and we have brought that to their attention and to which they switched over from what they were using."

Personal relationships developed with individual properties in rural areas have sometimes yielded discounted rates, according to Ripple.

"When the doctors go out and work in very rural areas, we know these people on a first-name basis," Ripple said. "They know my voice. Once we get that kind of relationship and that kind of leverage, the more people we bring in and the less our rates are going to be."

Before Collins joined Delta in March 2005, TravelFocus agents booked its travel reservations. The potential savings from creating a travel department with full-time employees spurred the transition to a travel department comprised of two Delta-employed travel managers, and two risk management travel coordinators for Delta Locum Tenens.

As Delta's revenues and number of employees have been practically doubling each year, its travel expenditures also rose and the travel team plans to grow as well. A third travel manager is slated to join the team in the first quarter of 2008, with the ultimate goal of becoming an ARC-accredited Corporate Travel Department in 2009, Collins said.