GTN - Key Persons
Allan is a travel industry veteran - he is affectionately called Foss so as not to be confused with young Allen. Having started in retail in Wellington, he set up a consolidator office for Travelplan Holidays in 1985 and was promoted to GM in Auckland. In 1989 he set up and co-managed Arena Holidays for 15 years, a niche airfare consolidator for independent retail agents throughout NZ. He also worked at GO Fares, Guru Travel and at Sydney based OTA Jetabroad handling airfares and ticketing and BSP accounting. Covid 19 hit forced his industry time out but he was lured out of semi-retirement in late 2022 by GTN. Allan only adds yet another layer of years of knowledge and expertise to the GTN team.
Allen started in the industry at Gullivers Unijet as a ticketing consultant in 2001 after studying at the New Zealand School of Travel and Tourism in Christchurch. Gullivers Unijet went on to become Smart tickets - that's where Allen mastered both ticketing and fares and is undoubtedly one of the best in the industry. In 2005 Allen moved to Wellington to manage Smarttickets and then to Auckland five years later and ended up as Air Tickets Operations Manager with over 20 staff catering to the whole of New Zealand. Allen also assisted Rob with looking after the Independent Agents and eventually the two of them formed GTN. Everybody loves Allen!
Caro has many years of experience in the travel industry both with airlines and travel agencies in New Zealand as well as Australia. She worked at Continental Airlines doing Sales Support and Ticketing, at Air New Zealand handling staff travel and was also Ticket Office Supervisor at Malaysia Airlines for many years. She has also worked at Atlantic and Pacific Travel, Jetset ticketing, Gullivers Pacific, Trips Travel (a division of Flexiplan Holidays) and House of Travel in various roles. Caro moved to GTN in 2018.
Grace is the baby of the team. She made her debut in travel just before COVID hit after completing a Bachelor of International Tourism Management at AUT. She was thrown into the deep end processing the large volume of refunds that hit us. She is now being cross-trained in quoting and ticketing.
Jeni started in travel in 1991 at Thomas Cook Special fares. She worked in various roles at Go Holidays, Go Europe, Tek Travel and Flight Centre - at Ticket Centre which is their Consolidation Unit doing Airfare quoting. She then became a Ticket Centre Trainer, then Operations Leader, then moved to Infinity (division of Flight Centre (NZ) as Infinity Learning and Development Leader. Jeni also spent 4 years at Flavour Travel, as Ticket Express Manager looking after the Consolidation team supporting the Mondo Stores. She then moved to Air Tickets as Telesales and Smartfares Manager and finally joined GTN soon after it was formed in 2016.
Job Titles:
- Planet Earth Travel Broker
Job Titles:
- Planet Earth Travel Broker
Job Titles:
- Commercial Assistant
- Training Coordinator
Rebecca started in travel in 2012 after completing her National Certificate in Advanced Travel, Tourism & Business at Sir George Seymour College as well as a National certificate in Tourism and Aviation at the Air NZ Airline training centre. She worked at First Travel Group where she did ticketing and then quoting for 5 years in total. She then spent some time overseas and came back to work for Lifestyle holidays as a Shorthaul consultant. Rebecca moved to GTN in 2019 as a Senior Fares Consultant and went on to assist the ticketing team. She left in 2022 to work in Agency Sales at Air New Zealand before Rob lured her back to GTN in 2023 to join the Commercial team.
Rob has been in the NZ travel industry since 1988. He started off as an Airfare Consultant with Thomas Cook Travel and also worked at Arena Holidays and Jetset. He has many years of experience working as a Consolidation Manager at Go Holidays and Tek Travel. He was also General Manager at the GSA Aviation and Tourism. In that role he represented several airlines and tourism boards in the NZ market. Rob then spent 5 years at Stella Travel (now Helloworld) where he was the Airline Contracting Manager as well as GM Independent Agents. In 2015 Rob, along with Allen, decided to set up their own travel group solely dedicated to looking after independent travel agents.
Rochelle began her career in travel in 1990, working for BSP in Parnell. She then went on to work at Jetset as a ticketing consultant, within wholesale and consolidation units until 1998 when Jetset was no longer. She then moved to Gullivers as an airline accounts administrator, working her way up to airline accounts manager when she left in 2014. She also worked at Xero accounting software for a short stint, then into Corporate travel as a Customer relationship manager for HRG/Executive travel for a couple of years. She was at Travelport as an Account manager for 3 years before joining GTN in 2019.
Before joining GTN, Sonia spent 24 years working with various airlines. She started in Revenue Accounts with Swissair in India in 1994, then moved to Dubai with Emirates Training & Development. She trained EK staff at head office and around the network in reservations, proration, airfares & ticketing and was actively involved in the launch of Skywards and the introduction of E-ticketing. In 2001 Sonia joined Air New Zealand in Auckland, training their call centre teams. She then went back to Emirates in Auckland where she helped set up EK operations to New Zealand in 2003. She worked at Emirates in Auckland for 14 years in many different roles and moved to GTN in 2017.
Job Titles:
- Process & Systems Consultant
Thomas started his career in travel in 2012, working in Land Database at Stella Travel Services. He worked for Air Tickets as a ticketing consultant along with Allen and Rob, eventually becoming a 2IC Fares and Ticketing consultant until 2019. He then moved to GO Conference & Incentives as a Travel and Event Coordinator before joining GTN in August 2019 as a Senior Fares Consultant. He left GTN in October 2020 due to COVID-19, to pursue a full-time career in Freight and Logistics working for Fliway Logistics. Given Thomas' excellent technical skills and experience, Allen and Rob shoulder-tapped Thomas in late 2022 to come back to GTN again.
Job Titles:
- Planet Earth Travel Broker