The findings: An expected overall reduction of 10.6percentt in air trips; growing inclination to book well in advance for cheaper fares, even at a cost of some scheduling inconvenience; and more use of low-fare carriers.
Nearly 75percentt of them said they anticipated spending the same amount or less on air travel next year, and 65percentt said they anticipated more use of low-fare airlines.
In part, that is because US Airways has reduced flights from Baltimore, but Black & Decker has also greatly increased its use of low-fare carriers, including Southwest Airlines and AirTran.
More than 60percentt of corporations are increasing their use of low-fare airlines, according to a June survey by the National Business Travel Association, an organization of 1,500 corporate travel officers at the Fortune 1,000 largest companies.
Among the reasons are an increased use of low-fare airlines and cheaper nonrefundable tickets and the price-shopping abilities of Internet booking sites, the coalition, a travel advocacy group, said.
Instead, some said, tighter corporate travel policies widely adopted in the last six months requiring more use of lower-fare advance-purchase air tickets, and less expensive hotel chains, are likely to curtail big gains.
Respondents to the survey pointed to the increasing use of low-fare carriers like Southwest, AirTran and Ryanair, which is based in Europe, as one way to manage costs.
With low-fare carriers already having taken a big chunk of the market in recent years, 13percentt of respondents said they had increased their use of low-fare carriers over the last six months, while 17percentt said their use of low-cost air carriers would increase in the next six months.
Yet rival houses Christie's and Sotheby's, neither of which makes heavy use of guarantees, fared little better later in the week.
This was a fine match, a treat for those of used to fare that can generously be described as attritional at this time of year.
