Troubled airlines lean on business travellers

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Posted by: Economist.com | WASHINGTON DC
Categories: Airlines
BAD news for business travellers: airline restrictions that require multiple-night stays are returning, and they're worse than before. As the Wall Street Journal's Scott McCartney correctly notes, multiple-night and weekend-stay requirements were designed to make business travellers pay more for air travel than their vacationing counterparts. Business travellers like to fly out, get their work done, and get home as quickly as possible. Fare restrictions make that tough, and according to a survey by Harrell Associates, a consultancy, three-night stay requirements are up 90% since January. Wondering where all this is coming from? McCartney offers a short history of fare restrictions:

For many years the Saturday-night requirement was a prime tactic airlines used to separate business travelers from leisure customers. The Saturday-night stay forced many business travelers to either pay hundreds of dollars more for each ticket, or to spend an extra night or two on the road to save money. If the choice was a $300 ticket or a $2,000 ticket, many companies would ask travelers to stay over Saturday night at a nice hotel, have a nice meal and still save hundreds.
The glory days of the Saturday-night stay scam may be gone, but it does seem like the airlines are turning to three-night stays as an alternative.  Will it increase revenues? Probably. But it's sure to irritate business travellers. No one wants to sit on a plane knowing the person next to them paid half as much to stay twice as long. In his Journal column, McCartney tells the story of one business traveller who became so annoyed with paying more for the same product that he switched to Southwest, a discount carrier. If the airlines continue to make business travellers pay more than leisure travellers for the same flights, the exodus to bargain airlines is likely to continue.