‘Business air travel will suffer for a couple of years’: Qatar Airways executive

The rapid growth of video conferencing over the last year and cost-cutting by corporations has decimated the premium travel segment. (Shutterstock)

• Premium travel would take time to recover amid cost cutting by companies

DUBAI: Business travel is likely to suffer for a couple of years according to a senior Qatar Airways executive.
Chief Commercial Officer Thierry Antinori told an event organized by aviation consultancy CAPA that premium travel would take time to recover amid cost cutting by companies.
Business class travel had been a strong growth market for airlines before the onset of the pandemic with Gulf carriers especially investing heavily in super-luxurious seats aimed at capturing high-flying executives.
But the rapid growth of video conferencing over the last year and cost-cutting by corporations has decimated the premium travel segment.
"Some procurement departments or some CFO's may use the opportunity of the crisis to cut costs without thinking too much of the top line so to save a couple of thousand dollars on one trip you may expose 5 or 10 percent of your top line," Antinori told the virtual event on Wednesday. "But that is very often what some companies are doing - so because of that and because of more time needed in the MICE business to rebound, I think business travel will suffer for a couple of years."
Anticipating the likely pace of recovery in premium travel is a pressing concern for the big Gulf carriers with much of their fleet configured to accommodate business class seats.
Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury said in a Reuters interview on Sunday that he expected business air travel eventually to return to close to pre-pandemic levels, with airlines devoting the same space to business class seats as before.