A leading corporate travel agent who helped hundreds of people return to Ireland in the early stages of the pandemic has been thanked for her efforts in a letter from Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney.
Eimer Hannon of Hannon Travel has a range of corporate clients, with a focus on the aircraft-leasing sector. One of her clients contacted her earlier this year to say the Department of Foreign Affairs was having difficulty bringing people home and she agreed to help.
“Embassies connected in with us from abroad, they put their stranded passengers in touch, we negotiated with Qatar Airline and we got chunks of seats on flights. And we set up a call centre and payment methods and got people home.” In total, Hannon Travel got 950 people back to Ireland.
Hannon had 26 staff before the pandemic and although this has fallen to seven she says there are some very early positive signs of business travel recovering.
Hannon was previously a leader on the Acorns programme, which is supported by the Department of Agriculture. Aimed at rural female entrepreneurs, there is currently a call out for applications with a deadline of this Monday, September 21. There is no charge for those selected.