Business travel is set to overtake leisure travel in July, study reveals

Business traffic is picking up again and – according to flight and trends analysis company ForwardKeys – the total amount of business related travellers will overtake the leisure traffic as from next July. 

Olivier Ponti, VP Insights, ForwardKeys, said: “Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, business travel flight bookings have been slower to recover than leisure, and currently still are. However, that situation now looks likely to change.

As of 30th May, we are seeing that the trend is set to reverse in July, with the recovery in business travel overtaking the recovery in leisure – as business flight bookings are 14% behind pre-pandemic (2019) levels and leisure are 16% behind.

Furthermore, the gap will probably widen in the autumn, as business bookings for September are just 1% behind 2019, whereas leisure are 8% behind. It is conceivable the trend of leisure leading the recovery could continue if there is a late surge in summer holiday bookings; but the rise in inflation, including the price of hospitality and airline tickets, makes that unlikely.”