As end-of-year events fill the diary, thoughtful travel planning can help PAs and EAs keep busy schedules on track – while making room for comfort and a little breathing space.
Planning festive travel with Blacklane
The festive season brings client gatherings, team celebrations and extra meetings, alongside the usual end-of-year deadlines. For executive support professionals, it also brings a more fluid diary, with plans changing throughout the day and more journeys to coordinate between commitments. Planning ahead can make the busiest festive diary feel more manageable.
An executive might move from the office to a lunch, then on to a client event and an end-of-year review, and end with an evening celebration, with travel required between each appointment. Add winter weather and busy roads, and even a well-planned itinerary can become difficult to manage. The challenge for PAs and EAs is keeping everything moving without having to rebuild the schedule every time plans change.
Making busy travel days more manageable
The most effective approach is to make travel part of the plan from the beginning, rather than leaving it as a last detail. Knowing where the car will be and when it will arrive gives everyone greater certainty. For days with several appointments and a large risk of schedule slippage, booking a chauffeur by-the-hour can be a practical option. The chauffeur remains available for the agreed period, making it easy to move between appointments without arranging separate journeys or travel plans having to re-thought each time one element changes.
That flexibility is particularly valuable. Assistants can plan for multiple pick-ups and drop-offs and adjust the schedule as needed, including on-the-go, rather than making a new booking for every leg. Blacklane’s bookers portal also helps assistants manage journeys, with a refreshed booking and editing flow as well as live tracking designed to make tasks straightforward.
Travel time can also provide more than a route from A to B. A comfortable car offers a valuable pause between commitments: time to prepare for the next meeting, take a call or catch your breath. When the schedule is full, that transition matters. It gives the guest a chance to arrive feeling ready, rather than carrying the stress of the journey into the next event.
For PAs and EAs organising festive travel, the priority is to build in a little flexibility. Plan the key journeys ahead, consider whether a multi-stop day would benefit from a chauffeur by-the-hour, and choose a professional chauffeur service in order to leave some breathing room between commitments where possible. This helps turn a demanding day into a calmer experience.
The festive season should be enjoyable as well as busy. With the right travel arrangements, assistants can spend less time coordinating logistics and more time focused on the people and priorities that matter – helping executives and teams arrive comfortably, reliably and ready for what comes next.
For more information please visit https://www.blacklane.com/en/corporations/bookers/.
