
Now is the time to think ‘resilience’
Yesterday’s major power outages across Spain and Portugal caused widespread disruption, with a state of emergency remaining in place in Spain this morning as recovery continues.
The power cuts caused significant travel chaos in Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, and beyond, with flights cancelled and businesses unable to take payments.
Maxim Sevastianov, CEO of post-booking automation expert Trava, says the power outages should be a wake-up call for travel firms.
“Today’s events show how fragile travel operations still are when critical systems go down. Too many businesses rely on single-location hosting and manual processes that simply can’t cope with unexpected disruption that affects entire countries.
“Now is the time for travel companies to rethink their resilience: set up geo-redundant systems, automate your entire chain from ticket reissuance to proactive refunds, and eliminate manual gaps that slow down the response when passengers need it most.
He added: “This isn’t about crisis preparedness – those who act now will raise the bar for customer experience in travel.”