US airlines count on business travelers to maintain recovery

With the summer holidays coming to an end, airlines are counting on the return of more business travelers to sustain the recovery from the pandemic into the fall.

Air travel in the United States, fueled by large numbers of tourists, has almost recovered to pre-pandemic levels.

Inflation, and especially this year’s sharp increase in airfares, raises concerns about how long vacationers can afford to keep flying at the current rate. Airlines say they see no signs of a slowdown in leisure travel.

Yet business travel remains 25% to 30% below 2019 levels, according to airlines and teams that track sales.

And it’s not clear when, or if, road warriors will return to their old travel habits.

“The whole challenge for the industry revolves around the return of the corporate traveler, and whether it will return in sufficient volume and frequency to help these airlines,” says John Grant, an analyst at travel data provider OAG.

The Global Business Travel Association recently predicted that corporate travel won’t fully return until mid-2026, 18 months later than the trade group had previously forecast.

Business travelers typically pay higher fares, so their absence has a huge impact on airline revenue and profits.

Business travel is taking longer to come back because it’s more complicated than someone deciding to take a vacation after staying home during the first two years of the pandemic, says Chuck Thackston, who leads data research at Airlines Reporting Corp. settlement that operates as an intermediary between airlines and travel agencies.

“On the corporate side, it just takes a little bit longer to restart that because there are so many moving parts,” Thackston said. “If you want to visit clients in New York, there may not be anyone in the New York office. That is slowly being rebuilt.”

Conventions and other large gatherings are another key driver of business travel and appear to be making a comeback, too, Thackston said.

Airline officials say travel by small business operators has almost fully recovered, but many corporate travelers have not returned to the road or the skies.

Southwest Airlines Chief Commercial Officer Andrew Watterson said that since business travel began to increase this spring, “it was skewed toward smaller businesses and government and education travel. Our largest corporations are the ones that are lagging behind, particularly banking, consulting and technology.”

Watterson said that among Southwest’s largest corporate accounts, they all have employees who travel, but not as many or as often.

[Con información de The Associated Press]

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