AirPlus, the corporate payment specialist, revealed that European companies are willing to pay higher travel prices, as there is an increasing number of business travelers flying in business class cabins.
Based in Germany, the company analyzed the flight bookings in eight markets in Europe, which include the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, the UK and France.
The data
According to AirPlus, 19% more flights were booked in 2023 by European companies as compared to 2022, with the overall spending on air travel hitting almost 76% of the levels recorded in 2019.
Switzerland was the country that saw the highest rate of recovery, as almost 88% of the corporates’ budget in 2019 was spent on flights.
Data showed that premium cabins were being used by business travelers more than they had done before the pandemic.
Almost 11.1% of the bookings that were made via AirPlus had been for business class. This was a 10.7% increase from 2022 and an 8.8% rise from the figures recorded in 2019.
This increase in demand for business class came despite the 7% year-on-year increase in average ticket prices.
This resulted in ticket prices reaching €3,867 last year. According to AirPlus, the average economy fares had been €515 in 2023, which was quite stable, as compared to €510 recorded in 2022.
More statistics
In the last three months, they had seen a further decrease in prices. The data shared by AirPlus was similar to the findings of Advantage Travel Partnership and Travelogix.
It reported that there had been significant growth in bookings in 2023 for premium air travel. AirPlus said that trip duration had also reached stability.
In 2023, the average trip duration reached 5.9 days, which was lower than 6.2 days recorded in 2022 and 5.4 days recorded in 2019.
The company also noted that there was an increasing trend amongst travelers of bundling different appointments into a single trip rather than taking a number of short trips.
In 2023, 6.8% of the trips booked were one-day trips, which was a slight increase from 2022 when they had been 6.5%, but below the proportion in 2019 at 14.3%.
The statement
The CEO of AirPlus, Oliver Wagner said that many European companies had recently seen the economic conditions become more challenging.
However, this has not stopped the companies from recognizing the importance of business travel and personal encounters.
Therefore, he said that business travel expenses should be considered as a cost, but should be regarded as an investment.
He added that they were recording some positive developments in the business travel space. According to AirPlus, the top destination for European companies was the United States.
China also managed to record to the second spot, where it had stood back in 2019, after finally opening up its borders for travel last year.
The other countries in the list of top five intercontinental destinations were India, Japan and the United Arab Emirates, not in that order.
Wagner said that there was a steady increase in
