New normal?

Hi All, maybe too early to tell but I am interested in how many people on here think that they will go back to flying as much as they did before COVID-19 or if familiarity with video conferencing, by you and clients alike, might see your travel permanently reduced. Mine was already going that way, and I think this will only accelerate it.

People have short memories, so travel will ramp up when the virus looks like it is under control

Travel or not, I'm missing the regular interaction with my colleagues in the office. Being able to get up and go bounce ideas off each other and having the separation from office to home.

What I'm getting at is although these days everyone in a great position to access those technologies to be able to communicate quite easily with everyone. Nothing will replace that face to face interaction so i think it'll return to normal levels.

Still see significant value in face to face meetings and feel that once things settle, travelling will be back on the agenda.

I think the biggest impact will be the financial situation of many companies. A lot of businesses will not exist post the pandemic and many that do will have a dented financial position. People will need to travel but I can see businesses reducing travel or at least saying no to business class travel. All of these factors will result in less travel and income for the airlines. One day it will all return but I can see it being a slow process.

Also massive impact on families - overseas and interstate holidays will take a hit.

I think it's a great question and there are some huge implications. For my mind there are two factors at play on this.

1. Businesses will need to work out how they manage in the face of long term disruption to travel plans. The solutions they arrive at are almost certainly going to be cheaper than the cost of flying people around the globe and are more robust in the event (heaven forbid) of some form or repetition of the carnage we are seeing at the present time. Once the final impact of this has started to play out I suspect many companies will look to significantly reduce their costs. It will also mean for many companies that they have a business operation that is more robust in the event of situations such as these (an awful lot of BCP's are going to get re-written in the coming months).

2. The second area is (briefly, but unsurprisingly) taking a back seat in the immediate discussions, but comes in the form of environmental pressures. No one can pretend that flying is a particularly green endeavour and the fact that the enforced reduction / elimination of travel for an extended period has been imposed on businesses means that Management are not seen as the bad boys or girls for reducing it. Once it's been cut, there is likely to be reticence in reintroducing.

I agree that we all like face to face meetings and there are many contributors to this forum who do need to travel. But having worked for large multinationals on 3 continents, the brutal reality is that a huge amount of corporate travel is not essential and much of it is largely seen as a 'perk' by people who get to go away once or twice a year (acknowledging again that there are a significant number on this site who fly an awful lot more than that). I may be wrong (as Mrs Ourmain frequently points out to me) but I suspect the terrible events of the last months will mean that the corporate travel landscape will change significantly going forward.

Others have mentioned the economic and technological impact of COVID. Another impact will be psychological and social.

Airline flights and cruising enabled the rapid spread of COVID. People have been stranded with border closures.

This is the first time that it isn't just the destination that is risky, but the act of travelling itself. The risk assessment regarding travel, at the personal and corporate level, will be higher in the future.

Given the link between travel and the massive impact of COVID, I'd expect an increase of travel shaming. Rightly or wrongly people are already associating death, the psychological stress of isolation and financial ruin with travellers.

Travel is largely discretionary. It won't stop, but the factors that frame our decision to hop on a plane have fundamentally changed.

I suspect recreational travel like mine (Canada for Summer/Australia for summer) will be in demand for a starved public and demand will result in high prices for a time until 'normality' returns - the airlines are not likely to offer any bargains while they attempt to reinflate their share dividends

I work both as a conference interpreter and in fashion, the former would get me to travel across the world, on UN assignments they would fly us business class so it was easy to retain Platinum on QF and Oneworld carriers and enjoy the extra perks as first class lounges, some upgrades, excess luggage and choice of seats but way before this dreadful Covid-19 the UN started reducing the number of meetings or would sinply have meetings with English only so I was downgraded to Lifetime Gold, boy what a difference, no crew coming to offer you water or welcome you if you were travelling economy. Fashion was a mess as an industry so no travel on that side either. My last meeting was in beautiful Samoa mid March, for the UN, but this time no more business and they put me on Virgin Australia, nothing much to write home about, what I miss is getting ready for an interesting assignment in a different location, nice or super nice hotels and foreign food, the sort of luxuries one would not normally have, including access to the best first class lounges all over the world. Travel is said to go back to normal by 2021, on CNN they said possibly 2022, I read an article in the Guardian that not before 2023. One thing is certain: nobody knows. Many of us won't get on a plane possibly for a long time but I most definitely look forward when that day comes along and we can go back to travelling like we all did before....

I'm with Rotten, in that I believe leisure travel might recover sooner than biz travel, as recreational travel doesn't depend directly on tightening of corporate travel policies. All you'll need is to still have a job to pay for it!

Meantime, I'm also with Rotten on the Canada in summer/Oz in summer gig, which I've mostly managed since I retired. Once this disaster is over, I'm on the 1st flight out to YVR! The sooner, the better.

I've forgotten what "normal" is. I'm an older Australian who retired to Scotland for easy travel access to Europe. Ha ha. I've cancelled all travel for 2020 because health-wise I just can't risk it. I have no idea if I'll get home to Australia anytime soon. And I was SOOO looking forward to the LHR-PER run.

I've forgotten what "normal" is. I'm an older Australian who retired to Scotland for easy travel access to Europe. Ha ha. I've cancelled all travel for 2020 because health-wise I just can't risk it. I have no idea if I'll get home to Australia anytime soon. And I was SOOO looking forward to the LHR-PER run.

My only question, Pegasus, is why you'd want to come home, in any case. My son & his family are currently in the UK, scheduled to return in Aug after his post-grad exams end-July. When I made the mistake of returning from Canada back on 10/3, and realised that it could be a very long time until I saw them again, I was desperate for them to come home by any means possible. But since the quarantine for returning citizens changed to incarceration in a hotel room, I'm now desperate for them to stay put, and stay physically & mentally healthy. Hard enough for my son & his wife to be at home virtually 24/7 in a nice rented terrace house in Oxford, with a 4y/o toddler and a 7 month old baby. Can you imagine what 2 weeks in a hotel room in Perth or Darwin or who knows where, would be like? And that's assuming they arrive off the crowded flight in good health. Then, they'd need to get back to SYD. An iffy proposition at best.

No doubt business travel will be reduced, but it won't disappear. Just as there is a big difference between looking at paintings in the Louvre on line and looking at them for real in the actual gallery in Paris, so there's a big difference between social/commercial interaction with someone on a screen and the same sort of interaction when you are in the same room. In due course businesses will recognise this. Meanwhile the thing I miss most is the sheer enjoyment of the whole process of J-class international travel. I am a Platinum FF so I guess I am spoiled.