News and Research

Business travel is likely to stay depressed as the airline industry begins its recovery from the pandemic. That’s the conclusion of a new report based upon a first-ever approach of assessing business travel by trip purpose, rather than industry category. The Journey Ahead: How the Pandemic and Technology Will Change Airline Business Travel is sponsored by global travel tech provider CarTrawler and was released today. The IdeaWorksCompany analysis estimates the frequency of different types of airline trips, predicts how that will change, and offers insights into how airlines can maximize new revenue in the future.  Here are three key findings from the report:  1) analysis reveals a potential overall loss of airline business trips ranging from a low of 19% to a high of 36%, 2) travel for “sales activity and securing clients” is the largest category of business air travel (25% of the total); it’s projected to show a modest loss ranging from zero up to 20%, and 3) intra-company meetings comprise 20% of all business air trips, and are projected to decrease up to 60%.