Europe remains grounded and conference call usage is up 30%
The UK and most of Europe has been thrown into chaos by a volcano no one had heard of until last Thursday. Eyjafjallajoekull in Iceland has been spewing out dust since it erupted on 15th April. What was initially seen as a small inconvenience for both business and leisure travellers and some peace and quiet for those that live under the flight path, as each day passes and the prospect of flights taking to the air again seeming even further away the UK and Europe are on the brink of a economic disaster.
Whilst the airline industry is estimating losses of $2.8 billion, some business are benefiting from the lock-down; in the last four days, conference call provider, our company has witnessed a 30% increase in registered users and over a 30% increase in usage of both conference calls and web conferencing.
These surges in conference calls and web conferencing usage are not rare; our company reported a 60% increase during the UK snow in December and January as people continued to keep businesses going from home. Historically these peaks remain for some weeks after the snow storms/volcanos/natural disasters have come to an end. People learn that there is another way of doing business, that meetings do not always have to include flying and conference calling can represent a very cost-effective, efficient way of doing business.
So does this represent a future for European business without planes? The ash cloud has made people consider other ways of meeting up: because they can’t fly they have been forced to try new technologies such as voice and web conferencing. This is obviously great news for us and the wider environment. We do live in the real world though and accept that some business people will always need to fly to some meetings. It would just be nice if there were fewer of them!
