Sunday 4th July 2021
Bahn is also expecting a comeback
Lufthansa: Sharp increase in business trips
In times of Corona, business trips by plane and train are falling massively. But will it stay that way in the future? Lufthansa is now reporting strong demand for business flights for the autumn. The Deutsche Bahn is also convinced that business travelers will return again.
Due to the lower number of infections, the number of business flights is increasing significantly. “We are currently experiencing a comeback of business trips,” said the Lufthansa Group’s Passenger Transport Board, Harry Hohmeister, of “Welt am Sonntag”. In Germany and Europe in particular, business demand for air travel is picking up again significantly. “For four weeks we have been registering increased demand for business flights for September, October and November,” he said.
Hohmeister expects that business flights in the third and fourth quarters will only reach 30 to 40 percent of the pre-crisis level. “But that is a multiplication compared to the same period last year,” he said. “I estimate that we as Lufthansa will end up at 90 percent of the pre-Corona level when it comes to business trips.”
There are also signs of an increase in business trips in rail transport. “Business travelers will return to the trains,” said Berthold Huber, the board of directors for passenger transport at Deutsche Bahn, of the newspaper. Huber believes that the Deutsche Bahn will benefit in particular from the comeback of business trips, because more and more companies want their business trips to be as climate-friendly as possible.
According to the Association of German Travel Management (VDR), small and medium-sized companies are much more likely to send their employees on business trips than large corporations, which continue to be very cautious. Managing Director Hans-Ingo Biehl said that the desire for more personal exchange is there again in many companies. “However, it is questionable whether the infection process allows this.” Biehl expects that “by the end of the year business trips will again reach 50 percent or more of the pre-crisis level”.
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