Mastering Crew Stays From Runway To Room Key

(June 2025)

General aviation crew are some of the busiest professionals in the aviation industry. With their passenger clientele driving the schedule, the trip purpose, and short-notice itinerary changes, GA pilots and crew are required to stay on their toes and be ready to adjust on the fly.

With that in mind, FPI’s elite in-house Travel Agency was built to shoulder the minutia of never-ending hotel management details that the average crew inevitably has on their plate each trip.

We’ve previously introduced FPI’s travel department lead, Joel Juarez, and have described in depth how tightly integrated the department is with FPI’s Operations Teams.

However, with the scope of FPI’s hotel management for GA crew having grown exponentially over the last year, FPI expanded their Travel Department with the acquisition of Mei Ng, Sr. Travel Coordinator, travel expert, and long-time friend of the FPI team.

Mei’s lifelong passion for her own travel experiences led her into aviation early in her career, beginning with Continental Airlines, with roles ranging from the general reservations desk to more complex corporate group travel management. Later, with American Express Travel, she embraced the after hours Emergency Travel Desk to manage short-notice and rushed changes for major corporate clients… a fitting background for FPI’s existing Travel Department pressures.

Although not a veteran herself, for a season Mei lived in Dubai to perform critical travel management for civilian support for the military around Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, etc. during the early 2000’s. It was later at Rockwell Collins that she met Joel Juarez and several other FPI team members, and as they say, the rest is history.

Mei’s background is yet another reason FPI’s Travel Department is equipped to handle the heavy load of important and time-sensitive demands common to GA crew hotel management, providing features such as:

• Expertise/experience on booking popular, recommended, luxury, and safe crew hotel reservations worldwide at competitive rates, often a challenge during peak travel seasons or regional disruptions and/or restrictions.
• Routine and frequent follow-up with hotels regarding crew early arrival or late departure times, which can be a big problem (as anyone who’s ever travelled internationally knows well) — especially after a long overnight flight.  
• Comprehensive integration within FPI’s overall Operations environment, keeping them updated on operators’ schedule and crew changes in real-time.
• Full oversight and ongoing management of hotel manifests for passengers and crew for all legs of the trip.
• Close communications with hotels regarding any adjustments and timing shifts.
• Addressing concerns with cancelation fees and other time-consuming paperwork negotiations on crew’s behalf.
• All of the above while keeping each client’s ultimate preferences in mind.

“Our approach is to be as proactive as possible for our crew clientele,” Joel says. “That affects the front-end planning of their trip, since we get to know their preferences and aim to make the travel as comfortable of a trip as possible for them, too.”

“However, our proactivity is also found as we learn of quick destination and/or itinerary changes through FPI’s Ops personnel. We consult quickly with the crew to ensure that change fees and alternate price options are presented so that crew have the best choices in their hands so they can make the best decisions for their preferences and budgets.”

“It’s also important for us to do thorough research on the hotel options when we design our presentation to the client at the outset,” states Mei. “We don’t want to merely put them in any old hotel… So we research ratings, we see what travelers say about the property, we do our best to negotiate the best rates possible, and we look for added perks such as early check-in, late check-out, etc., to best match the crew itinerary.”

In the event that the crew is staying at a destination for a lengthy amount of time, Joel and Mei will be in close contact with FPI’s ground handlers for that region so that rental cars and/or private transportation can be reserved for the crew, typically via FPI’s Special Services Network (SSN) teams.

Hotel bookings are guaranteed to the FPI credit cards, taking another task off the shoulders of the crew. With FPI’s Accounting Team being familiar with the high level of scrutiny needed for worldwide invoice review, having FPI’s accounting wizards be the extra set of eyes on crew hotel invoices can save hours of time on complex, multi-leg trips.

Finally, the ultimate peace of mind comes with the benefit that all hotel manifest and travel data is seamlessly housed on FPI’s internal, custom trip application, FlightProConnect.com (“FPC”), thoughtfully designed for pilots, trip schedulers, and dispatchers. At any given moment, crew can access the full trip details and the latest hotel information on a 24/7/365 basis, no matter where they are in the world at the moment.

FPI’s Operations teams are also available by phone 24/7/365 should there be a need to connect with FPI’s travel department should any scheduling emergencies arise. Both Joel and Mei are well-experienced with handling rushed travel details if needed.

“I remember when I was in Dubai, our role was to physically chase down military support personnel in the airport to give them their connecting airline tickets in person. As one would imagine, they were eager to get home on their breaks, and their layover windows were razor thin,” recalls Mei.

“If we could victoriously chase down the homesick international crew, there’s no hotel detail now that we can’t successfully chase down as well.”

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To learn more about FPI, FPC, or regarding the Compliance, Operations, Regulatory, and other Special Services Network (SSN) teams, please contact our Operations staff here at Flight Pro International.

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