First-quarter global business travel booking numbers reached 76 percent of 2019 levels for UK-based broker Air Charter Service (ACS), surpassing its original forecast and leading it to predict that figure could move beyond the 85 percent it forecast for all of 2021.
“‘Zoom fatigue’ is a real thing and clients are realizing that Zoom is just not the same as face-to-face business meetings,” said ACS group private jets director Andy Christie. “We expect that non-essential meetings will not take place as often as they used to, but business travel will continue to improve in 2021 as soon as restrictions on quarantine are eased and vaccines distributed more widely.”
Christie further noted that in terms of leisure travel on private jets, bookings in April increased by 25 percent when compared with April 2019. “This increase proves just how much people are keen to book trips abroad,” he added.