Business Travel Looks Ahead To 2008

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So what do you do when you’re bleeding a point of market share per year for a generation? Merge some more. Big-carrier combinations have proven to be operational nightmares, brutally disruptive for passengers, and, ultimately, ineffective in staving off nimble upstarts such as Southwest and JetBlue. But the self-styled Sky Gods who run the airlines always manage to protect their own perks and paychecks, so watch for an endless series of “discussions” about combinations and even a merger announcement or two.

Nets on Jets
This year is also when we go back to the future with in-flight internet and email. The first attempt to plug jets into the Web was a spectacular flop: Boeing shut down its Connexion service in 2006 after blowing about a billion dollars and wiring some 100 aircraft. But several companies are preparing to test more-cost-effective options this year. American, Alaska Airlines, and Lufthansa, Connexion’s biggest customer, will launch new initiatives, while in recent months, JetBlue, Air France, and several Arab carriers put a few internet-enabled aircraft in the skies on a trial basis. This time, however, the hurdle won’t be technological, but social. What happens when your chatty seatmate on the aisle plug into Skype and talk nonstop coast-to-coast. Or when some jerk logs into YouPorn.com? And who wins the space race when someone reclines their seat right into the lap of the business traveler who needs to set up a laptop, log on, and finish a report?

Lodging, Both Class and Mass
After nearly a decade of breakneck expansion and record profits, hoteliers are reaching the supply-demand tipping point in the United States. So many new hotel rooms are coming online that we may actually have more beds than heads. That’ll mean a long-overdue moderation of nightly room rates here at home. Overseas, the big hotel chains see a market ripe for the plucking. Despite some initial skepticism and logistical challenges, all-American concepts such as the all-suite hotel and limited-service brands such as Courtyard by Marriott and Hilton Garden Inn are sprouting international branches. Meanwhile, there seems to be no end to the number of luxury hotel brands being created to cater to the super-deluxe market. Which explains why a city like Florence, Italy, now boasts both a Bulgari-branded hotel and a brand-new Hilton Garden Inn.

The Fine Print…
What else should you watch for this year on the road? The disappearance, sale, or collapse of state-owned carriers such as Olympic of Greece and Alitalia, the perennial sick men of the European skies.… Another major new aircraft, the so-called Boeing Dreamliner, is set to debut in the fall.… A new terminal for Heathrow Airport, prosaically called T5, opens in London in the spring.… And barring a major financial correction that depresses passenger traffic, lots more delays and discomfort when you fly. But you’d already guessed that one, right?

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