Demand for business travel to and from the UK has fallen by nearly a third since before the pandemic, amid an increase in home working and environmental backlash against the world’s biggest companies. According to an analysis from the New Economics Foundation (NEF), flights for business purposes fell by 29 per cent last year compared with 2019. NEF, which examined data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), said that some 3.
9m fewer trips were made over the period as big corporations dramatically cut spending on air travel. In total, businesses shelled out around £2.9bn less on air travel in 2023 compared with 2019, a 22 per cent decrease.
The surge in home working and increasing use of platforms like Zoom and Teams for video conferencing has reshaped the relationship between major companies and business flying. While demand for holiday trips rebounded dramatically from Covid-era lows last year, the more chequered recovery of corporate travel has been a concern of senior airline executives. The boss of the IAG, the airline conglomerate which owns British Airways, Iberia and Vueling, warned last summer that things were “not improving” and that booking volumes had “plateaued,” even as the group hauled in record profit on resurgent leisure demand.
London City Airport, long regarded as the UK’s busiest business travel hub, revealed in April more than half its passengers were now travelling for leisure for the first time. Data has suggested corporate travel wa.
