[Debconf-discuss] Final call for group travel discount for dc11, and some responses

[Jimmy Kaplowitz <jimmy@debian.org>]

Hi,

http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf11/GroupsDiscountAirfare shows that,
of the people who want to do a group travel discount for DebConf11:

* There are only 8 total who have listed themselves, and presumably a few more
  who didn't put their names online as Micah suggested.
* Of the 8, only 4-6 are from a single geographical region
* Of the 6 people who put in dates, no single departure date has more than 3
  people listed, and not all 6 are necessarily traveling back on the same day

Unless there is a lot more interest among those who haven't booked yet,
we don't have enough people to make this happen for DebConf11. We either need
10 people traveling from the same city on the same airline (or even the same
flight for some programs), or 20 participants on the same airline from multiple
origin cities.

Since both individual and group bookings should be made very soon, I'm going to
set a deadline:

** If you want to join the group travel booking for DebConf11, add yourself **
** to http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf11/GroupsDiscountAirfare or email **
** me by 23:59:59 UTC Tuesday May 31. It won't happen if too few of you do. **

I definitely plan to pursue a properly advertised, multi-airline group
arrangement for DebConf12 and later years with as many of Star Alliance,
SkyTeam, and Oneworld as make sense. Those tend to have minimum participation
sizes of 50 people, so unless the wiki's list explodes this weekend this can't
work for DebConf11. Various lead-time requirements might prevent this anyway.

We probably will direct future-year discount participants to the airlines, the
alliances, or a travel agency with special instructions, but if we end up using
the wiki, I'll split up that page on a per-year basis as Paul suggested. As
long as we start early, any solution will work much better starting next cycle.

See you in Bosnia!

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy@debian.org