Business travel

A new All brand, a new digital portal, a loyalty programme offering exclusive experiences: Accor is entering a new world.

The strike is still having a significant impact on transport, particularly on the RATP and SNCF networks. The call for demonstrators on 10 December is unlikely to help matters. The DGAC is already forecasting a reduction of 20% in Tuesday's flight schedule.

Enterprise is adding a highly strategic market to its network: the car rental brand is making its debut in Brazil, initially targeting international airports.

According to the data processed by Expensya, taxis and VTCs did not take advantage of the strike on 5 December to drive up prices.

To everyone's surprise, Cohor has allocated the majority of the slots held by the now-defunct Aigle Azur to routes within Europe. The big loser is Algeria, for which no frequencies have been allocated, even though there has been a real shortage of air links since the demise of Aigle Azur.

The strike continues on the SNCF and RATP networks, with operations expected to be severely disrupted on Friday 6 December. At Air France, the impact will be much more limited.

SkyTeam inaugurated its new lounge at Istanbul's new airport on 5 December. This is the seventh lounge in the alliance's colours worldwide, while a new one is due to open in Chile in a few weeks' time.

Under the guise of more efficient check-in, Singapore is launching a new facial recognition system to identify travellers in hotels. A measure that could make some business travellers suspicious...

Hong Kong's third largest carrier has fallen victim to the crisis in the former British colony. Hong Kong Airlines is also paying for the financial errors of its owner, China's HNA. The company is now threatened with possible closure.

Unsurprisingly, SNCF and RATP traffic will be severely disrupted on Thursday 5 December, with 1 train in 10 on the Transilien, TGV and Intercités networks. In Paris, 11 metro lines are at a standstill.

London Heathrow airport, Europe's busiest airport in terms of passenger numbers, is finally discovering that it could be linked by train to the rest of the UK, freeing up valuable time slots. Some of this will become a reality in 2022.

After announcing last September that it would be opening a sixth French base at Lyon St Exupéry in spring 2020, Volotea this week opened up the destinations it plans to offer from the city to bookings.

In Switzerland, an application from the Swiss Federal Railways has been available since November with the "EasyRide" programme. A small revolution for the habits of travellers in the Swiss Confederation.

Air France has teamed up with Hertz as part of the Hertz DriveU programme, to provide business travellers with a private chauffeur to take them to and from the airport.

The G7 taxi network is launching a loyalty programme aimed at business travellers who have taken out one of its subscriptions. Regular users will have access to various advantages in terms of upgrades, priority services and experiences.

In June, Air Astana will be swapping its Paris - Nur-Sultan route for a service to Almaty, Kazakhstan's historic capital and commercial centre.

Uber's future in London is under threat. The VTC operator's licence has just been suspended by Transport for London (TfL) for safety reasons. This decision is not yet effective, and Uber will appeal against it.

Art and architecture with Jean Nouvel, Jean-Michel Wilmotte and Arne Quinze, trendy or business hotels with Mama Shelter and Novotel: with the inauguration of its new pavilion 6 and the end of the second phase of its metamorphosis, Paris Expo Porte de Versailles is opening up to the city.

RATP has just made official the creation of its very first start-up accelerator, which will be launched in January next year to imagine the mobility of the future. The six-month programme will support six projects, with a particular focus on user experience and improving air quality.

The financial situation of Ukraine International Airlines has deteriorated sharply, and its restructuring plan is very reminiscent of those of Jet Airways and Adria Airways before they collapsed...