United Airlines thinks business-as-usual corporate travel is over

The chief commercial officer of United Airlines (UAL) confirmed Wednesday that one of the airline industry’s biggest COVID-19-era shifts will be more permanent than initially imagined. Andrew Nocella said the company is leaning harder on its leisure customer base as businesses continue their cautious spending around travel.

“I expect it to continue going in the right direction, but I don’t expect it to return to the levels of 2019,” he said at the Skift Global Forum travel industry conference in New York.

The consulting firm Deloitte recently said that nominal spending could soon reach new highs, with 73% of business travelers expecting to be traveling more this year — a 15-point jump from 2023. But the Global Business Travel Association isn’t expecting an inflation-adjusted recovery in the sector until at least 2027.

Instead, Nocella said, the norm will be less business and more pleasure. That transition could create its own challenges, though. Whereas business travelers go to business capitals to do business stuff, tourists go everywhere, whether they’re wanted or not. Nocella pointed to the popularity of places like Italy, Portugal, and Spain.

“Southern Europe in total has had an incredible amount of demand post-pandemic,” he said.

When Gordon Smith, Skift’s airlines editor, asked Nocella if the company felt awkward about contributing to so-called overtourism (in Barcelona, locals took to squirting their numerous unwanted visitors with water pistols), Nocella gave a bottom-line answer: “We put the airplanes where the people want to go.”