Airlines are optimistic as business travel recovers slowly and steadily

This past year was the busiest holiday air travel period on record, according to the Transportation Security Administration. Friday, Delta Air Lines told investors that the holidays drove a strong final quarter of the year, as it reported financial results that beat analysts’ expectations. 

And it’s not just vacations and family visits driving more passengers to airlines. Delta said business travel ticked up too, and it expects the volume of corporate travel to stay steady or increase in 2025. 

That’s welcome news to airlines, which have seen a much slower recovery in business travelers since pandemic lockdowns in 2020 pushed more people to work from home.

In the “before times,” selling lots of tickets to business travelers was the way major airlines made a lot of their money, because those passengers are willing to pay more, said Edward Russell, a freelance aviation journalist.

“If they’re not booking day of, they’re booking a day or two before, and they’re paying top dollar to get where they need to go and get to their meetings,” he said.

And, he said, airlines would sign big contracts with major corporations to lock up most of a company’s travel business.

The pandemic put a stop to all that. Once things opened back up, people flocked back to airports to go on vacations, but a lot of business meetings stayed on Zoom.

Now, five years later, with more return-to-office mandates in effect, the volume of business travel may be close to where it was in 2019, said Robert Mann, an industry analyst. 

“What we’ve seen is just a slow, steady uptick in corporate travel activity, which is to say, bookings through recognized corporate travel agencies,” he said.

And, Mann said, airlines once again are competing for those big corporate travel contracts.

Companies like Delta have emphasized the recent growth in that part of their business, but, said Samuel Engel, with the consultancy firm ICF, “when you’re in the dark, a small ray of sun looks especially bright.”

Meaning, while it’s improved, business travel is below where it would’ve been without the pandemic. So, to keep revenues up, airlines have had to compensate, Engel said.  

“They’ve adapted their network and where they fly to make sure that they’re putting more capacity into leisure destinations,” he said.

And: “Airlines have gotten really good at the upsell,” said Russell, the aviation journalist.

As in, charging more for premium offers even to individual business travelers whose company may have paid for their ticket, he said.

“There’s a big trend towards people willing to pay their own dollar for sitting in nicer seats, premium seats, whether that’s extra legroom or first class on domestic flights,” he said.

So even if the number of business travelers isn’t exactly booming, airlines are finding ways to make more money from those who are getting on board.