On an earnings call in late July, Southwest Airlines’ chief commercial officer, Andrew Watterson, said that while business travel began picking up this spring, it skewed toward smaller businesses, government and education.
“Our largest corporates are the ones that are lagging — particularly banking, consulting and technology — who previously were among our top-tier travelers now are on the lower side,” he said, adding that Southwest’s biggest corporate accounts all have employees traveling, but not as many, and not as often.
The report found that total spending on global business travel reached $697 billion in 2021, just 5.5% above the pandemic-low of 2020. The GBTA predicts spending in 2022 to reach $933 billion, 34% above last year’s levels but only 65% of pre-pandemic levels. “The factors impacting many industries around the world are also anticipated to impact global business travel recovery into 2025. The forecasted result is we’ll get close, but we won’t reach and exceed 2019’s pre-pandemic levels until 2026,” said Suzanne Neufang, CEO of the GBTA.
I think the airlines need to get their act together.
This is not a good sign.
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