Today, it is reported that Cathay Pacific will permanently suspend seven loss-making routes, including Hong Kong and Washington, Newark Airport adjacent to New York, Seattle, Brussels, Belgium, London Gatwick Airport, Dublin, Ireland, etc.
Some of these are business travel routes. I have two friends who often take this flight to Seattle for business trips.
Coincidentally, Bill Gates, who frequently mentions shipping, said in the latest interview that it predicts that business travel will be reduced by more than 50% after the epidemic. In the future, the threshold for business travel will be “very high”. If it is not necessary, there will be no business trip opportunities.
Bill Gates mainly believes that the epidemic has made it possible for bosses to see the possibility of working from home and meetings. Just like himself, he has held 5 meetings with high-level pharmaceutical companies this year, and 5 meetings were held online, and these meetings were always in New York Everyone insisted on attending the event in person, but an epidemic prevented him from taking business trips.
In fact, the market trend is like this. According to a survey by the Global Business Travel Association, 85% of the more than 1,300 respondents have already cancelled all business trips this year, and only one person may resume normal business meetings in the second quarter of next year.
If Bill Gate’s predictions come true, it might be better to run less business travel routes; even if they do, business travels are greatly reduced, how can Business Class operate? I believe that not everyone wants to take an economical business trip.
Some market participants have described that the business guest market has been destroyed by the Covid-19 . This sentence sounds like an exaggeration now.