The pandemic has drastically reduced the number of business air travelers this year, and while activity is expected to pick up once a vaccine is available,air travel may never reach its previous heights again, according to the Wall Street Journal. This is because companies have increasingly adapted to virtual meetings, a trend that, if continued, means there will be fewer reasons to physically travel to meetings when a Zoom call will do just fine. While this won't completely kill business travel, as there will always be reasons to go someplace else for work, it is expected to trim between 19 and 36 percent of all air trips for good. This, said the Journal, will affect leisure travelers as well, since corporate customers, via higher spending, tend to subsidize vacationers. Further, because there will be less demand for travel to business hubs such as New York or Chicago, there will be fewer flights there, meaning less room for people who prefer making deals at the gift shop rather than the board room.

The assessment is in line with recent polls over the past few months. For instance, the most recent Travel Intentions Pulse Survey found that the percentage of people saying they are “[n]ot at all likely to travel for business in the next six months” jumped from 26 percent in October to 38 percent in November. A recent Oliver Wyman survey, meanwhile, found that, between May and November, the percentage of business travelers who expected to travel less for business even after Covid-19 subsides rose from 27 percent to 43 percent. This is at least partially because people do not trust the companies to adequately plan for flyer health and safety: Another poll, from ExpertFlyer.com, found that more than half of people, 62 percent, do not trust self-regulated safety measures being implemented by airlines or hotels.