Delays, cancellations and airline ancillary fees are the top frustrations for U.S. business travelers, according to a new survey released Tuesday by the U.S. Travel Association. Business travelers on average would have taken 2.69 more domestic trips last year if the nation had a more efficient air travel system, the report claimed. In total, including both leisure and business, travelers avoided 2.41 trips last year.
The survey of 1,031 leisure and business travelers was conducted in February by independent research company ResearchNow. Travelers surveyed on average took 5.49 trips in the prior year.
"Last year Americans avoided 38 million domestic trips because of hassles in air travel. Thirty million trips avoided is 8 percent of the current demand, which is a huge figure considering the [U.S. Federal Aviation Administration] is forecasting travel to grow 2.2 percent a year for the next two decades," U.S. Travel Association president and CEO Roger Dow told reporters during a conference call. "Overall, the negative impact last year was $35.7 billion, which boils down to the state of our air travel infrastructure. We need to take a hard look at our national priorities and how we can invest in our air travel system."
Half of the respondents said they would have taken three or more business trips in the prior 12 months with a more efficient air travel system, while 22 percent of surveyed business travelers said they chose in the prior 12 months not to take a business trip because the air travel system problems made it seem like "more of a hassle" than it was worth, according to the survey.
Specifically, half of the business travelers surveyed chose delays and cancellations as the "most frustrating" aspect of air travel, followed by airline fees (42 percent) for such items as checked bags, flight changes and seat assignments, the survey indicated. Sixty-five percent of business traveler respondents also noted these same airline ancillary fees as having become "more frustrating" in the prior 12 months, followed by the overall cost of flying (63 percent) and flight delays and cancellations (45 percent).
Despite these fee, delays and cancellation frustrations, more than half of business travelers surveyed (56 percent) indicated their air travel hasn't been impacted and they travel the same amount as they "used or planned to," according to the survey. However, the survey indicated that 32 percent of business travelers travel less than before or than they planned to because of airline ancillary fees.
While 41 percent of business traveler respondents said it was "not that difficult" to predict accurately the full costs of flying, including ancillary fees for checked and carry on bags and seat assignments, more than half of business travelers (56 percent) said they had paid a checked bag fee that they didn't originally anticipate. Similarly, business traveler respondents also paid unanticipated fees for seat assignments (24 percent), carry-on bags (18 percent), taking a later or earlier flight even when seats were available on those flights (21 percent), flight changes (13 percent), priority boarding (13 percent) and other services (5 percent), the survey showed.
Unsurprisingly, the unintended fees for checked bags and taking earlier or later flights caused all business travelers surveyed to feel some level of frustration, according to the survey. Specifically, 80 percent of business traveler respondents reported feeling "very frustrated" for paying unintended carry-on fees, and 13 percent felt "somewhat frustrated," according to the survey.
To improve airline delays and cancellations, the U.S. Travel Association suggests federal investments in airport infrastructure and accelerating the deployment of the next-generation air traffic control technology, known as NextGen. However, the U.S. Travel Association claimed FAA's mismanagement and funding uncertainties have delayed development and implementation of NextGen.
"Implementation of new satellite-based air traffic control technology, called NextGen, would increase capacity by one-third, lower fuel consumption, reduce cancellations and decrease flight times," the report noted.