Viewing the comforts of Business Class aboard the Singapore Airlines A380 are TravelManagers’ personal travel managers and Air Zealand and Singapore Airlines staff. From left bottom row TravelManagers’ personal travel managers Matt Halloran, Cathy Moir, Viviana Hales, Michelle Michael-Pecora, Kelly Jenkins, Cissy Yee, Irena Bryant, Lagan Chaudhri,  then back row from right to left Jose Canas – TravelManagers’ National Partnership Office, Fiona Perry, Lee-Anne Talbot, Arthur Vicario - TravelManagers’ National Partnership Office, Tim Swan - Air New Zealand and Rachel Gatumia - Singapore Airlines.
	TravelManagers personal travel managers from the second training group with representatives from Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, South African and Thai Airways at the entrance to the Air New Zealand lounge. Bottom middle to right TravelManagers’ personal travel managers Robyn Simmons, Niedra Mcleod, Michelle Schulze, Stella Vlahos - Lufthansa, then back row right to left Rachel Gatumia - Singapore Airlines, Jo Ainscough, Paula Shields, Julie Napier, Teresa Reyes, Jennifer Dwyer, Alma Araullo, Beverly Burt, Diane Craig, Julie Anderson - TravelManagers’ National Partnership Office, Lyn Tyson, Graham Ware - South African Airways and Denise Dolton - Thai airways.

TravelManagers place a huge emphasis on training, constantly up-skilling and educating their personal travel managers. Naturally they were thrilled with Star Alliance’s positive response when approached about an exclusive training day. National Business Partnership Manager for TravelManagers’, Michael Gazal says it was a first for Star Alliance.

“TravelManagers was the first travel agency network or group to attend this type of training event, it was deemed so successful by Star Alliance and our personal travel managers that they now intend to open it up to the industry.”

The following airlines participated in the training:
Air Canada
Air China
Air New Zealand
Lufthansa (including Austrian Airlines, as a member of the Lufthansa Group)
Scandinavian Airlines
Singapore Airlines
South African Airways
Thai International Airways
United Airlines

Gazal says interest to attend from their personal travel managers was so high the training was conducted over two separate days.

“In total 26 of our personal travel managers attended and two staff from TravelManagers National Partnership Office.”

Gazal believed the training with Star Alliance was hugely beneficial; it allowed for inspection of aircraft from two different airlines (an SQ A380 and a UA Boeing 747) plus their personal travel managers had an opportunity to view the Air New Zealand lounge.

“There’s nothing like seeing and experiencing it first hand when it comes to informing clients. In addition to the aircraft and lounge inspections our personal travel managers also had access to fares training and direct access to Star Alliance staff. They were able to ask questions of the various airline staff and gain answers on the spot as all airlines were represented.”

The fare training was naturally centred on Star Alliance systems which included Round the World fares, Circle Pacific fares, Circle Asia fares and also Air passes.