Business class air travel still depressed

There is no reversal apparent in the big dip in numbers of air passengers travelling business class.

“The (number of ) people flying business class has seen a decline of over 40 per cent in the domestic routes and 20 per cent internationally,” said Ajay Prakash, general secretary, Travel Agents Federation of India.

Data from Cleartrip.com, a portal for ticket and hotel bookings, shows the occupancy rate for business class seats in the domestic sector has come down 50 per cent.

Corporate travel has not picked up after the economic slowdown and even the government has resorted to austerity. Also, airlines have cut capacity and are getting into more and more low-cost models, Prakash said.

An official with Cox and Kings’, the travel group, said business travel this year is down compared with last year, due to the recession.

“Overall business class travel, including domestic and international, is down. Corporate travel is down badly due to the downturn and swine flu. But the future looks a bit better,” said an official of Thomas Cook, a travel agency with international presence.

There is a general agreement that international business class travel has been hit much more than the domestic one.

Air India, Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways are the three Indian full-service carriers which provide business class accommodation. But of late, all three are planning to get more and more into the low-cost model. The national carrier is to run its low-cost service, Air India Express, in the domestic sector from next month. Jet and Kingfisher are concentrating more on their respective low-cost versions, Jetlite and Kingfisher Red.