“BA’s view is that it will take quite a long time, potentially more than five years, before the full value of the business market returns,” he told The Times. “Right now [businesses] are putting more people into (premium) economy class. Our business and first class business volumes have fallen by around 15 per cent, but economy volumes have fallen by about 1 per cent [for the six months to June 2009]. One could reasonably guess that a certain number of business class customers are down trading to economy.”
He also admitted that in a recovery, the days of charging executive travelers £4,000 for a return transatlantic ticket could be some time off. “The big question is, will people be prepared to pay the same prices? One has to reasonably assume that they won’t,” he added. This may be the single most important item in this post. People are learning new consumption habits quickly and the value proposition may changed forever.
BA recently ran special offers with prices as low as £1,100 and two for one offers allowing some business travelers to fly for free. A top priority for BA now is to persuade corporations that cutting back on executive travel could be bad for business, Talling-Smith believes.
The company commissioned a travel survey from the Harvard Business Review, among 2,100 business customers. More than two thirds [69%] report a reduction in their travel budgets, 87% considered face-to-face meetings as essential for closing deals, and 95% agreed meetings are key to building long-term business relationships. The survey found that 48% are managing pretty well on reduced travel budgets. That is a telling number wouldn't you say?
In other news --
- Sustainable aviation fuels
- Southwest's near convertible
- Heathrow's third runway EIR
- The non so clean hands at Virgin Atlantic
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1 comments:
I appreciate the labor you have put in developing this blog. Nice and informative.
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