Hartford Business Journal

18 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | FEBRUARY 5, 2024 Connecticut Airport Authority Executive Director Kevin Dillon stands outside Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks. HBJ PHOTO | SKYLER FRAZER Flying Private $30M Bradley Airport hangar project aims to capitalize on increased corporate jet use, despite business travel's slow recovery out for flights. "We have felt all along that despite the fact that business travel across the board was down during the pandemic, those companies that have external customers would have to return to business travel," said Dillon. "But it's the intra- company travel — for example, a company that's headquartered here in Connecticut, but has operations on the West Coast — are their employees going to travel to interact with their peers, or are they going to continue to do that via Zoom and other platforms?" he said. " That, I think, is the big question." Private aviation's appeal The recent unreliability of the airline industry in general has been a drag on business travel's recovery, experts said. "Their schedules haven't kept up, their reliability hasn't kept up," said Doug Gollan, who writes about the private aviation industry. " There are all sorts of different issues impacting airline service." "With flights booked to the gills, if you miss your connection at a hub or your flight is canceled, it's not arriving at your destination an hour later, it's ' we can't get you there till the next day.'" Gollan runs a subscription data- base that shows his clients flexible ways to access travel by private jet, including memberships, charters and jet cards that allow companies to buy a certain number of flying hours. He said of the subscribers to his service who are just starting to consider their options, "over 60% of them say the reason that they're looking to fly privately is a bad airline service." Private jet use had seen a steady rise in the decade before the pandemic. In the last three years, that increase has been more dramatic. By some accounts, overall private jet use in the U.S. has increased by 20% over 2019 levels. Gollan said more company exec- utives began to realize the conve- nience of private aviation during the pandemic. "Time is money," he said. That's led to what Gollan calls "situational use" of private jet travel by companies. "If there's two things private aviation does, it saves you time, and there's no such thing as lost baggage." The trend is observable even at a smaller commercial airport like Bradley, which saw a 22.4% increase in private jet flights between 2000 and 2002. The airport hosted 12,346 private flights in 2022, and 11,953 in 2023, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. And those numbers may get a boost in the near future: Bradley just announced a major deal with New York-based private jet service company Sky Harbour to build a $30 million hangar complex at the airport. The deal encompasses the construction of five private hangars that will include lounge and office By Harriet Jones Hartford Business Journal Contributor O f all the "new normals" that the pandemic brought us, one that stubbornly continues to linger is the downturn in business travel. For a time while COVID was at its height, in-person meetings, once seen as essential, were entirely replaced by the ubiquitous video conference. And in the years since, many companies have continued to realize the savings from the ability to hop on a laptop rather than a plane to connect with both colleagues and clients. Kevin Dillon, executive director of the Connecticut Airport Authority (CAA), said 2023 was a year of continued recovery for air travel in general, and at the state's largest hub, Bradley International Airport. "We captured back a lot of our pre-pandemic traffic," he said. "But if you look at where we're at right now, on any given day we're still about 5% to 7% below where we were pre-pandemic, and a good portion of that is related to this business travel component." Overall passenger traffic at Bradley Airport, from January 2023 through November 2023, was up 8.1% from 2022, but 7% behind pre-pandemic 2019, according to CAA data. A survey of employers released in 2023 by Deloitte did show growth in the sector, and predicted that busi- ness travel could see full recovery to pre-pandemic levels by late 2024. But the same survey showed that many companies are continuing to eye their travel budget as a place where they can cut costs and increase sustainability by reducing employee trips. When travel does happen these days, it's more often short range — managers are approving trips within driving distance rather than shelling Business travel's ripple effect By Harriet Jones Hartford Business Journal Contributor C onnecticut's hospitality industry continues to feel the impact of the slow return of business travel. "In 2023, there were definitely more conferences. Attendance was better than 2022," said Ginny Kozlowski, executive director of the CT Lodging Association. "But we're not completely back to where we were pre-pandemic." The association estimates that before the pandemic, busi- ness travel accounted for about 60% of hotel stays in the state, with leisure travel at 40%. "It's flipped," Kozlowski said, with leisure now accounting for 60% of hotel stays. Because business stays are generally longer and involve just a single person per room, that also means the industry has had to restructure rates to remain profitable, Kozlowski said. Ginny Kozlowski

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