Blended Travel Is Not New, Nor Is It The Savior For Lost Airline Business

Blended Travel Is Not New, Nor Is It The Savior For Lost Airline Business

Share to Linkedin People have been combining business and leisure trips for decades. A new focus on this travel ... [+] creates opportunities and risks for the large U. S. airlines. Since the pandemic has changed the way people think of business travel, large U. S. airlines have been thinking of new travel types that could replace it. Delta has spoken of the premium leisure passenger, or people that will pay for a nicer onboard experience and an upgraded hotel and ground package. Other large U. S. airlines have spoken of the "blended passenger", or some say the "bleisure" passenger. This supposed growth category includes people whose travel includes some business and some leisure. It's understandable why the big U. S. airlines would look for this kind of traffic. Faced with business traffic levels stuck at about 75% of 2019 volume, this loss of revenue would be sizable for the three largest U. S. carriers. Corporate travelers have historically paid three to four times that of the discretionary, price-sensitive traveler. Even a 10% loss of business traffic volume would mean that airlines don't have enough seats to make up the revenue with just leisure passengers. So, focusing on travel types