[seasonedtraveller]

My present employer determines class of travel based on independent circumstances. For example, for the past 18 months I have been developing our North American business from the ground up.
Travelling from the UK across the Atlantic every 2- 3 weeks.

I started in economy and as the business developed, I was allowed to fly business long haul. I am now allowed to fly business on any flight above 5 hours ie MAN JFK or Boston to Phoenix.
I am very grateful to my employer for, what I view as a huge privilege.

[planegeek]

I have worked in corporate travel for around 20 years advising companies on their travel programmes, and typically the policies apply as follows: Pharma, Energy, Consulting, Banking/Finance have the most ‘generous’ policies startying at around 4/6 hours for business class for all grades of employee.

The most stingy are IT/tech companies who almost universally have an economy-only policy for all staff below senior VP. Most other industries fall somewhere in the middle. 8 hours for business class is the typical benchmark for those.

To many companies, premium travel is not a perk but a matter of health and safety. I am sure that the amount of G&T’s consumed can sometimes offset that, however!

[Charles-P]

Having tried a few different systems we now try and keep it simple as possible:

Flights over four hours – Business Class
Other Flights – Economy

We find this works well and our staff think it is fair as it applies to all members of staff myself included as CEO and owner of the company.

[RichardB]

With my previous employer (Nokia in Finland): economy class for everybody regardless of the duration. Meeting with a customer in Australia? You will fly economy.
There was an exception in that if you go immediately from the airport to a meeting with a customer then business class was allowed although I knew of nobody who ever did this, you would be requested to fly a day earlier. There was notionally an exception of travelling more than 100 days/year got you business class but when I reached that level I was told it would still be economy so they did not follow their own policy.
My current employer (also in Finland in the telecoms sector): economy for everybody regardless of the distance.
I have not heard of any employer in Finland agreeing to business class and since Finnair don’t have premium economy then that is not mentioned in travel policies here.
I suspect the same is true for most companies in the Nordic area (economy for everybody regardless of distance), doesn’t the owner of Ikea even fly economy himself.
The swedes have a word for this concept of “in moderation” – lagom. And I think it applies to business travel also.

[Bath_VIP]

Charles & Richard,

Your two comments shine an interesting light on my beliefs regarding travel policies. I am very much an egalitarian when it comes to this so I believe strongly that the policy should be the same for everyone regardless of seniority and status so both of your companies sound spot on here. However, being an egalitarian doesn’t make me a masochist and so I can’t agree with the Scandinavians here. I think “lagom” actually means “discomfort in moderation”!

[JPHK1878]

Thank you everyone for your feedback, quite insightful. There is quite a large variance on policy.

Our current policy is :

business class for flights over 5 hours and for senior grades.
flights below 5 hours is economy.
Economy for all junior associates, no matter the flight time.

We’re based in Asia and the issue that we have is business class flights to USA are exorbitant. SQ/CX/United/AA/Delta can be as high as US$8-10,000 return to New York. Economy averages at US$1,500 so there would be considerable savings if everyone flies economy.

It would be a very unpopular move with senior executives if we remove business class travel, but the cost savings would be significant.
No decision has been made by finance yet, but I wanted to get an indication of what other firms were doing.

Thanks again for the input.

[CathayLoyalist2]

If a business traveler is taking frequent trips to the USA from Asia, and I live in Singapore, then Economy that frequently could become a health issue. From Singapore there is always going to be at least one stop via HKG (CX) , via FRA or SEL (SQ) or any of the ME3. This is not just a question of finance, you have to give thought to what state you want your people to arrive in to do business. You night say go a day or two earlier and stay in a good hotel but that means more time away from the family.

[Author]

Posts