Fueled by a financial crisis that continued to broaden this month, many companies have enacted further plans to cut trips and draw down travel budgets. As some travel buyers instituted across-the-board travel freezes or flying reductions, others have further tightened the screws on policy and ramped up enforcements to shave costs.
A Business Travel Coalition survey of 196 corporate travel buyers conducted this month showed nearly 26 percent of the respondents "implemented emergency travel cutbacks in the past weeks as a direct result of the financial crisis." Of the respondents indicating newly implemented cuts, 34 percent characterized the cutbacks as "straight-up travel freezes," while 19 percent said they took the form of mandates to reduce the number of trips.
BTC chairman Kevin Mitchell said the majority of those respondents plan to "keep emergency travel cutbacks in place until 'further notice,' underscoring the great uncertainty about the economy."
Mitchell said developments on corporate travel cuts continued in "real time" as he began to field the survey on Oct. 15. In one example, he said a travel buyer who noted "no executive mandate to decrease travel" replied within 24 hours to say, "As of a few minutes ago, there is a mandate to curtail travel, so I will resubmit my survey response."
Mitchell said the survey shows an acceleration of trends established earlier this year exacerbated by financial woes and economic uncertainty. "Many corporations began cutting back on air travel at the beginning of 2008 based upon worsening economic data points," Mitchell said. He said similar surveys fielded in the first quarter did "not identify a pullback trend one way or another. However, by mid-year, a pullback seemed broad-based."
Though Mitchell said about three-quarters of the respondents were U.S.-based, survey respondents represented 14 countries.
In a National Business Travel Association survey of 230 companies fielded from July through September, 56 percent said their company cut travel costs, 9 percent reported temporary travel freezes and 39 percent reported reducing meetings.
In July, BTN reported cutbacks in corporate travel, which previously appeared to be contained within financial services and pharmaceutical markets, were being instituted at many other companies. In some cases, buyers reported cutting travel spending by more than 20 percent as they readied for a business slowdown
(BTNonline, July 21).American, Continental and Delta, reporting third-quarter operating losses this month, braced for a further downward spiral in corporate travel activity, though those carriers said the net effect of the financial crisis remains to be seen.
"We know that demand for air travel will be adversely affected by a recession, and it remains to be seen how deep, wide and long the recession will be," said Continental Airlines CEO Larry Kellner during the carrier's earnings call this month.
Continental president and COO Jeff Smisek spoke specifically to corporate demand, saying, "There will be an overall negative effect on corporate travel, although our early indications show the effect will vary by industry and by region."
Citing a recent survey of corporate clients, Smisek said, "Obviously, the financial firms in New York City are feeling the biggest effect, with all of them indicating a significant reduction in travel spend for the remainder of the year and a sizable expected reduction in their 2009 budgets."
Houston-based Continental said energy companies "continue their travel spend," emboldened by oil prices Smisek called "still pretty high compared to historical prices." However, the battered automotive industry is showing a "significant downturn in traffic," Smisek said. He also noted that customers in the pharmaceutical industry "will be budgeting for travel at slightly lower levels for 2009, although a lot depends on product launches, which can cause a spike in travel."
American Airlines CFO Tom Horton said the carrier also had witnessed "softening demand" in the carrier's third-quarter earnings call this month. "We have seen a little bit lower corporate travel," Horton said. "That's down a few percent in the month of September, though it's down less than it was in August. We saw a pretty good downdraft in corporate travel in August. It's really a little too early for us to have a good look at that because it tends to be late bookings."
American, like other carriers, said the New York market has been hardest hit. "We have seen that with the turmoil in the financial markets, the demand out of New York is softening more than other parts of our domestic system," Horton said. "As we look at our advanced booked load factors out of New York, it's weaker than the rest of the system."
Delta Air Lines executive vice president of network planning and revenue management Glen Hauenstein spoke less specifically about the impact, but noted "most corporate clients right now are seeming very cautious. We had some clamping down in the fourth quarter, but the capacity reductions we have taken have more than offset that."
Even before Mitchell released his survey of corporate travel buyers and airlines pointed to further demand concerns, Travel Technology Consulting Inc. president Norm Rose this month said, "Companies are eliminating the trips that aren't necessary. In the current economic environment, this is something that is on every CFO's mind."
Just as travel cutbacks accelerated throughout the year to reach fever pitch amid the deteriorating economic environment, companies also continually tightened policy controls for much of 2008.
The BTC survey shows some of those controls have tightened even further, as those survey respondents who said they have avoided outright cuts are tightening the screws on policy and compliance, as 46 percent who had not implemented emergency cutbacks indicated putting in place additional controls on corporate travel "as a direct result of the financial crisis."
Continental's Smisek pointed to such policy controls growing among the carrier's corporate clients. In addition to budget cuts and weakened travel levels, Smisek said Continental continues to see "typical behavior among most of our corporate customers in response to weaker economic conditions." That includes advance purchase requirements, using lower-cost restricted fares, policies that encourage travelers to trade down from business class to coach and more stringent approval processes.
Frank Schnur, vice president of Advisory Services for American Express Business Travel, last month invoked such savings tactics and encouraged companies "to cut the fat out of their travel commitments without cutting into the muscle."
Hervé Sedky, vice president and general manager of American Express Business Travel Global Advisory Services, who along with Schnur delivered a corporate travel outlook last month, gave the example of one company that shifted to a 14-day advance purchase policy and garnered $4 million in savings. "This is saving spend without cutting travel," he said. "There's a lot you can save and still have the same amount of travel going on."
A survey this year found such policy enactments as further emphasis on advance airfare purchase and use of nonrefundable tickets nearly unanimously were employed by Management Alternatives' clients, said the firm's owner and president Carol Salcito.
Meanwhile, airline's are waiting to see if the decline in demand adequately matches newly lowered capacity levels, leaving carriers whole with pricing power. They also are waiting to see if the recent fall in fuel costs will be sustained and whether they offer a silver lining to a weakened revenue outlook.
JPMorgan airline analyst Jamie Baker this month said third-quarter jet fuel averaged more than $1 per gallon more than some spot prices recorded this month. During the third quarter, "the industry hadn't undertaken unprecedented capacity cuts, and demand had yet to reflect the most recent global malaise. As such, we broadly consider 3Q industry results to be irrelevant, offering little to no insight as to the industry's 2009 profit potential."
However, noting the results of his corporate travel buyer survey, BTC's Mitchell said there often is a lag before companies' cutbacks are reflected in carriers' finances.
"There is an eerie similarity to the last cyclical downturn in the fall of 2000. However, there is an order-of-magnitude increase in the seriousness of the current situation and in corporate responses vis-à-vis travel expenditures this time around. In the 2000 downturn, strategic changes to corporate travel programs, including travel reductions and greater use of low-cost airlines and technological substitutes to air travel, did not start showing up in airlines' results until the end of Q1 2001."