COVID-19's blow to business travel will likely be felt for years, The Wall Street Journal reported Jan. 17.
Remote work and meetings during the pandemic seem to have shown that business travel is less necessary, and companies may slash their travel budgets to compensate for revenue lost during the pandemic. Ed Bastian, chief executive of Delta Air Lines, said on an investor call "that the airline's recent customer surveys forecast around 70 percent of pre-pandemic corporate travel will resume by 2023, including international trips," the Journal reported.
Travel industry executives are split on when and if pre-pandemic levels of business travel will return, the Journal reported.
The near term seems more brutal.
"Perhaps by the end of 2021, our assessment is that domestic business could be in the range of down 50 percent to 60 percent from the pre-pandemic level," Gary Kelly, Southwest Airlines CEO, said at an industry conference in December, according to the Journal.
Around 1 million travel-related jobs have been lost since February, according to the Labor Department, reported the Journal.
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