Business Class Flight Restricted By Big Spenders
The largest-spending companies are more likely to allow business class flight and require bookings through designated travel management companies and/or online booking tools, recent research revealed, based on an April-May survey of travel managers in the United States and Canada. Across all respondents, 31 percent allow business class flight to Europe. For flights to all geographies, the largest-spending companies are more likely to authorize business class flight than smaller spenders, according to the report.
Overall, two-thirds of the 73 percent of companies that had updated travel policies in the past two years restricted business class flight. Researchers determined that "the premium charged by airlines for upgrading to first class flight in the U.S. and business class flight internationally averaged 223 percent more than economy class on a basket of domestic and international airfares."