Avis Survey: Air Delays, Traffic Top Business Travelers' Time Wasters
Flight delays are the top time waster for business travelers, but traffic, baggage claim waits and airport security checkpoints weren't far behind in a survey of more than 6,000 business travelers Avis Rent A Car System plans to release today.
The survey found that frequent business travelers reported losing up to four hours on an average three-day trip, not counting time spent reclaiming baggage or in security lines at the airport, according to Avis. Travelers blamed an hour and a half of that time on traffic jams, being lost, waiting for tolls and looking for Internet connections.
More than three-quarters of travelers surveyed rated flight delays as a major business travel inconvenience, and more than half similarly rated being stuck in traffic. Slightly less than half listed baggage claim waits, airport security and getting lost as major business travel time-wasting woes.
Toll lines were listed as an inconvenience by 23 percent of respondents, and only 13 percent said looking for Internet connections contributed heavily to lost time. Only 6 percent listed hotel checkin and checkout as an inconvenience.
Avis and other car rental suppliers in recent years have focused on mitigating most of the time-wasting factors—with the exception of flight delays—and Avis said its survey confirmed the wisdom of that focus.
"More than twice as many people said that the time they spend looking for Internet cafes, Wi-Fi hotspots or other broadband connections is extremely or very inconvenient than the time they spend checking in and out of hotels," Bob Lambert, senior vice president of commercial sales for Avis parent company Avis Budget Group, said in a statement. "Other than waiting at the airport during flight delays, the single most inconvenient business travel delay is time spent stuck in traffic."
Avis introduced a portable navigational tool for its fleet last year to help travelers avoid traffic jams and getting lost. Since then, both Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group and Advantage Rent-A-Car have added navigational tools to their fleet, and Hertz recently expanded its offering.