Swiss business travelers: Fewer low-cost airlines - economy instead of business class

Global business travel volumes depend on various factors - internal on the one hand, external on the other. The general economic situation plays a role, as do the effects and uncertainties caused by terrorist attacks or the government shutdown in the USA at the turn of 2018/19.

In Switzerland, however, the government shutdown had no direct impact on business travel to the USA, as the figures for flights handled via AirPlus show. America - first and foremost New York - remains the most frequently traveled overseas destination for the Swiss on business. "In contrast, the shutdown is likely to have had a much greater impact on business travel ex U.S. or within the U.S., as government employees have largely had to forgo travel," explains Andy Stehrenberger, Managing Director of AirPlus in Switzerland.

The climate debate reaches business travel

In the current discussion about climate and environmental protection, aviation occupies an important place. This is not without consequences in the area of business travel. "Awareness of the issue of the environment has also increased significantly in the area of business travel. For example, we are registering increasing requests for climate reporting as well as conversions to e-billing and paperless processes. However, we are far from a flight boycott in business travel," Stehrenberger comments on an evaluation of the flight data of AirPlus customers. Average spending on rail travel has increased slightly, but this is only in line with the usual growth and not a result of the climate debate.

Low-cost carriers continue to lose importance

The share of low-cost airlines used for business continues to decline. While just under 10 percent of business travelers switched to a low-cost carrier in 2016 (9.9 percent), the figure was only 8.0 percent in 2018. However, this does not mean that flight costs have risen excessively: In 2018, companies paid an average of CHF 435 per European flight (2017: CHF 433) and CHF 2978 for intercontinental flights (2017: CHF 2932). While service classes remained virtually unchanged for European business (96.3 percent economy class, 3.4 percent business class), Swiss business travelers on intercontinental flights apparently paid slightly more attention to budget: 50.3 percent of travelers flew economy class (+1.6 percentage points year-over-year) and 48.6 percent traveled in business class (-1.4 percentage points year-over-year). First Class accounted for an unchanged share of 0.4 percent in 2018.

London and New York are top destinations for Swiss business travelers

74.6 percent of flights by business travelers from Switzerland are to a destination within Europe, 24.2 percent are intercontinental and 1.2 percent of flights handled via AirPlus are within Switzerland. The most frequently visited cities for business are London, ahead of Düsseldorf, Vienna and Berlin, and on long-haul routes New York, ahead of Shanghai, Singapore and Moscow. The most popular travel months are September to November - a total of 30.3 percent of business flights are completed in these three months. The least travel is in August (5.4 percent) and December (5.7 percent). Although the topic of bleisure - combining a business trip with a leisure stay - is attracting increasing attention, especially among the younger generation, Mondays remain the most popular travel day - 27 percent of airline tickets billed via AirPlus fall at the beginning of the week.

Share of women increases continuously

The proportion of women taking business trips is slowly but steadily increasing. Today, their share is 20.8 percent - in 2015, this figure was still below the 20 percent mark. There is hardly any discernible gender difference in terms of flight destination (domestic, Europe, intercontinental) - but there is when it comes to the choice of service classes. Women fly 83.9 percent in economy class (men 82 percent) and 15.8 percent in business class (men 17.5 percent). In general, it is noticeable that flights were booked earlier in 2018 than in the previous year (25.3 days before departure in 2018 vs. 24.5 days in 2017). Women book their flights an average of 27.6 days before departure, men only 24.5 days - but the values are converging. It is also encouraging that the proportion of canceled airline tickets is falling steadily and this year stands at 2.7 percent. Here, too, women are doing better than their male colleagues (2.8 percent) with a cancellation rate of 2.3 percent.

Source: AirPlus