When does business travel again ramp up?

[Melburnian1]

Does interstate (and intrastate) air travel by businessmen and women and other non-leisure travellers only significantly recommence after the Australia Day long weekend, or are lots of business travellers returning to the skies from teh third week of January?

There has been some commentary on the Internet that companies are cracking down on travel. Is this exaggerated or merely anecdotal, or is it really occurring? What about government department and agency travel patterns in 2014?

Are there any differences in changed travel policies' rigidity (such as 'no flights in business class under 3.5 hours flight duration) between interstate/ intrastate flyers and overseas business flyers, or is there no change at all in entities with which you are familiar?

What about those who fund business travel yourselves? Are you likely to take the same number, more or fewer inter/intrastate or international flights in 2014 compared with 2013?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

business travel is generally considered to ramp up again after mid Jan. Before then plenty of leisure travel out there (and lots of upgrades on long hauls on QF )

 

[BAM1748]

Starts straight away for me. Next week Adelaide and Perth the week after that.

Looking forward to a boom year in 2014, meaning not cut backs on travel.

 

[Moopere]

There has been some commentary on the Internet that companies are cracking down on travel. Is this exaggerated or merely anecdotal, or is it really occurring? What about government department and agency travel patterns in 2014?

Are there any differences in changed travel policies' rigidity (such as 'no flights in business class under 3.5 hours flight duration) between interstate/ intrastate flyers and overseas business flyers, or is there no change at all in entities with which you are familiar?

The last place I worked they changed their policy in about 2008-2009 from mandatory Y class for flights under 6 hours (conveniently to capture pretty much all AU traffic) to having a 'soft' policy of basically Y class to everywhere no matter the journey length. I say soft, because initially at least, if you complained long and loud enough about being sent to the US in Y from PER there was a reasonable chance of getting a J ticket from the beancounters. Just before I left they were still trying to send folks on 12-16 hour flights or more in Y ... ridiculous in my view.

I did notice over my time with this business that they slowly started to take a view of employees being 'consumable' though ... ie, use em up and burn em out - then get a new one, rinse and repeat. Not a small organisation either, extremely large US based firm.

What about those who fund business travel yourselves? Are you likely to take the same number, more or fewer inter/intrastate or international flights in 2014 compared with 2013?

For mine, I'm likely to be taking more J in 2014, both national and international - generalising, Y class has degraded to a point that makes one wonder just how low things can go. I guess the airlines are also testing this boundary of acceptability.

When I'm forced by financial sanity to take long international Y trips I'll try to build in way points with a day or so of no flying along the journey. Perhaps I'm just getting old - my body just can't seem to take the abuse of really long, long haul in Y any more.

 

[samas]

For me it's straight into it off to KGI on Monday 6th January, ADL the following week, KGI again straight after Australia Day and then DRW two weeks after that (and then home to PER via ADL for leisure.)

 

[BensAdventures]

This topic got me thinking. I'll be not getting on another plane probably until February, but interestingly I'll then be overseas in the months of March, April, May, June (maybe July), September, October, November & December! Big year ahead! Some of this trips are very late in a month so for instance I'll be away 2 days in May, 5 days in June on the same trip. I'm kinda excited about this year now!

 

[Cruiser Elite]

Got back into office this morn after a break and just started to think about the year ahead. I guess I will travel as much as other years if not more - then I had a quick check of trips already planned - it is the spread of carriers that really struck me - I have never had this spread of carriers before - and we haven't really got started yet:

MEL-HKG-NKG CX J
PEK-SIN-MEL SQ F

MEL-BKK-PEK TG J
PEK-BKK-MEL TG J

MEL-PVG MU J
PVG-MEL SQ F

MEL-SIN-LHR SQ F
ZRH-SIN-MEL SQ J

MEL-BKK-ZRH TG J/F
FRA-BKK-MEL TG F/J

MEL-LAX QF F
LAX-MEL VA J - 6 different carriers - wonder who else I can add to the list?

 

[fersea]

I will be on leave too much this year to do much work travel!!

 

[userlame]

Straight back into it next week. SYD - BNE return, then SYD - PER return, then SYD - MEL return all before Australia day.

 

[Boris spatsky]

Perth and Adelaide the week of the 13th for me.

 

[suparockin]

Our work policy is any single leg over 12 hours gets J.

 

[Melburnian1]

An interesting, widely varied string of responses. Thank you to all: it tells me how much those who travel for work differ in where they go, with whom and when.

 

[Simo]

Looking at my travel in previous years.

A few years ago I did more travel over Xmas/ New Year period than I did in January. Mainly due to relocations and network upgrades.

this year no travel planned at all.