The duty of care mistakes most companies make in a crisis
When the Middle East crisis broke earlier this year, most corporate travel management programmes were tested in ways nobody anticipated. Some passed. Many didn't.
It's no surprise that 72% of enterprises now feel that risks to business travellers have increased in recent years. And 80% of companies have had to adjust travel itineraries due to health or safety concerns in the past year alone. Political instability, health risks, natural disasters; the range of threats facing global travel programmes has never been broader, and the margin for error has never been smaller.
At FCM, we've compiled this checklist of the most common duty of care mistakes so you can audit your own corporate travel management programme before the next major travel disru
1. You haven't read the fine print on your travel insurance – recently
War exclusions, civil unrest clauses, airspace closure carve-outs, and government travel advisory exclusions have all tightened since February. The policy that covered your people in January may not cover them today. Most travel managers won't find out until a claim is declined.
A risk assessment matrix is one of the most effective tools available for evaluating and prioritising travel risks. It helps organisations visualise which risks require urgent attention. If your government issues a "do not travel" warning for a destination experiencing political instability and your traveller goes anyway, you may have no cover at all.
2. Your travel policy is living in a pre-February world
If your travel policy crisis management protocols don't address rerouting authority - who has sign-off when the airspace picture changes mid-booking - it's dangerously out of date. A well-defined travel risk management plan is literally the difference between swift adaptation and prolonged business travel disruption.
It should document worst-case scenarios, outline clear procedures, and specify who is authorised to approve a last-minute premium cabin upgrade when economy is sold out, or who decides to cancel travel plans when fares breach policy thresholds.
Successful crisis response begins before the crisis hits. That means developing a formal Crisis Management Plan, not just a loose set of guidelines that nobody has tested. Cross-functional representation matters here too. Your crisis team should include leaders from HR, Legal, IT, Communications, and Operations to avoid confusion under pressure.
3. Your traveller profiles are running on last year's information
Out-of-date passport details. Missing next-of-kin information. Stale medical notes. Old emergency contact numbers. These are the details nobody thinks about… until they need them at 2am on a Saturday.
During emergencies, travel managers must have the tools to consistently locate employees as they travel and connect with them quickly. Establishing reliable, actionable lines of communication determines the tone and outcome of your entire crisis response.
Kelly Simpson, Manager of Company Travel Services at Allied Gold, experienced this first-hand:
Within hours, your team provided us with a comprehensive list of all our passengers who were potentially affected by the crisis, which allowed us to quickly assess our exposure and communicate effectively with our travelling employees and their families.
4. You have no visibility of what happens between the flight and the hotel
Here's the number that should stop you mid-scroll: 67% of corporate ground transport activity is invisible to travel managers. That's a structural blind spot in most global travel programmes, and it raises serious questions around spend control, policy compliance, and traveller safety.
Your traveller is most vulnerable in the gaps: the unvetted taxi, the ride-share booked on a personal card, the transfer arranged through a local app. Duty of care doesn't stop at the airport gate. If your corporate travel platform has no visibility over ground transport, no amount of sophisticated travel technology elsewhere in your programme will compensate for it.
5. Your travellers are self-booking during disruption
When flights are cancelled and support lines are busy, travellers tend to sort it themselves. They book an unvetted hotel. They grab a transfer through a local app. They put it all on a personal card. The result: no audit trail, no safety check, no visibility for the travel manager trying to execute enterprise travel disruption management.
Effective crisis communication requires multi-channel strategies to reach all stakeholders quickly: pre-approved templates, designated spokespeople, and messaging guides that allow teams to respond without starting from scratch in the middle of an emergency. But if travellers are operating outside your system entirely, none of that infrastructure can reach them.
For clients with large numbers of affected travellers, including Allied Gold, FCM provided dedicated travel support and proactive travel communication rather than managing the chaos through email chains.
What truly stood out was FCM's responsiveness and support during this critical time. Your consultants worked tirelessly to rebook flights for affected travellers and provide 24/7 support to address concerns and changing circumstances in real-time.
- Kelly Simpson.
6. You don't have a rapid re-accommodation protocol
If a hub closes mid-trip, how quickly can your TMC actually move? Clear trigger points are essential. Without them, your crisis protocol won't activate until it's already too late for an effective emergency response.
Having a crisis travel technology solution capable of real-time monitoring is no longer optional.
The companies that navigated recent disruptions best had pre-agreed escalation paths, pre-authorised spend thresholds, and a TMC with 24/7 emergency support - not a voicemail box.
Every traveller was accounted for, and we successfully ensured everyone's safety thanks to your diligent efforts. This experience has reinforced why we chose FCM as our travel management partner.
- Kelly Simpson.
Your End-of-Day Self-Audit
Run through this before you close your laptop to check your business continuity and crisis response strategies are where they need to be:
If you ticked every box, you're ahead of most. If you didn't, you know what to do.
The travel industry has a saying: duty of care isn't a policy document. It's what happens at 2am on a Saturday when everything goes wrong. The question is whether your programme - and your TMC - is ready for that moment.