"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
...


C J Campbell wrote:

I wonder if business travelers should bother with the airlines at all
anymore.

And "conference calls" will not do the job in many cases. We would've lost
a 50
mil contract if I couldn't have been face to face with the subject matter
experts on one occasion (our competition *was* face to face with them).

C-Calls are limited but with web-conferencing like WebEx the gap closes
meaningfully. No question that WebEx probably displaced 10-15% of my last
employer's travel budget. This is one of those "inflection point" issues.
Once people start assuming their competitors aren't getting on a plane they
won't get on one either. There will always be things that demand the
in-person presence but that list will shrink by 5% or so per year. A 35%
drop in business travel over the next five years is not out of the question
and would make 9/11 a footnote to the collapse of the airline industry.

-cwk.