"C Kingsbury" wrote in message
ink.net...

"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.


That loss in business travel is more than enough to put one or two majors
out of business. They have only themselves to blame due to the fact they
ripped and continue to rip off the business traveler which for years has
paid top dollar for a seat.