Customer story
Dryffus - Global taxi transfers
logistical challenge of crew transport at KLM.
And how exactly does it work?
“If KLM crew members are working for extended periods, they have to arrange overnight stays.” “They can’t fly back, so taxis take them to hotels. But this involves dozens of destinations with different hotels and various taxi companies.” It’s an administrative jungle. “We make at least 300 trips a day, spread across 80 destinations. And each taxi company sends its own invoices that have to be checked. It’s a truly enormous task.”
Complex puzzle
There had to be a better way, Sander thought. So, with SBA, he built a system that simplifies this complex puzzle. “All journeys are recorded in a logbook. We link the flight details to the journeys, neatly schedule everything, and Dryffus, our client, handles the rest from within the tool. With the push of a button, they can see where and when a taxi is needed.”
This tool eliminates the administrative hassle, says Sander. “KLM used to receive a stack of invoices from each taxi supplier at the end of the month. It was a mountain of work to sift through them all. Now we’re reversing the roles: we send a draft invoice to the taxi company, based on the rides.”
A taxi company in Barcelona, for example, receives our invoice with what we think they should be billing. They review the invoice and can make any adjustments, including their own invoice number. We then forward the entire process to Dryffus. And because the system runs so smoothly, taxi companies also get paid faster. Everyone’s happy!
Oscar Huls (founder Dryffus)
It all started modestly, years ago, with just three KLM Cityhopper destinations. But that quickly grew to ten, and before we knew it, in 2009 we had all of KLM Cityhopper’s crew transport services within Europe under our belt. With that scaling up came its own set of challenges. Solving the “complex puzzle” was absolutely essential. It wasn’t just about arranging taxi rides anymore. No, we also had to streamline communication with dozens of taxi companies in different countries. Each company had its own approach, rates, and billing system. This created an avalanche of disparate documents and administration. With the rapid growth, that quickly became unsustainable. And that’s when the collaboration with SBA began.