Speaker 1: It's Tuesday. I'm Oscar Ramirors from the Daily Dive podcast
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America. The airline
Speaker 1: industry was waiting for business travelers to come back, to
Speaker 1: get them back to pre pandemic levels. Well, some of
Speaker 1: that has returned, but flight cancelations and delays are causing
Speaker 1: some professionals to offer the road trip instead to avoid
Speaker 1: delays and missing appointments. They're willing to drive up to
Speaker 1: seven hours to get where they need to be. Alison Poi,
Speaker 1: travel reporter of the Wall Street Journal, joins us for more.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Allison, thanks so much for having me. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the biggest things that the airline industry was
Speaker 1: waiting for to help bring the industry back. This is
Speaker 1: after all the closures and everything that was going on
Speaker 1: through the pandemic, was the return of the business traveler.
Speaker 1: And now we're kind of seeing some of that happened.
Speaker 1: It's coming back in a lot more ways as more
Speaker 1: offices are opening up. But man, these travel disruptions, these
Speaker 1: all this travel disruptions to air travel are really wreaking
Speaker 1: havoc on people's schedules and in a lot of case,
Speaker 1: some of these business professionals are just saying, screw that,
Speaker 1: I'm probably just going to drive. Some reports are saying that,
Speaker 1: you know, people are maybe taken up to seven hour
Speaker 1: drives just to get to whatever it is that they
Speaker 1: need to go see clients, these business conferences, all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So Allison tell us a little bit more about how
Speaker 1: the disruptions are really just changing everything. So a lot
Speaker 1: of leisure travelers have experienced these disruptions as well, from
Speaker 1: staffing shortages, COVID absences, weather problems, air traffic control as
Speaker 1: wall and business travelers are right there alongside them. So
Speaker 1: some of them are opting to drive instead of fly
Speaker 1: for work trips. And that means that as opposed to
Speaker 1: driving three to four hours as they might have done
Speaker 1: in the past, they're now driving five to seven hours
Speaker 1: rather than take some of these shorter haul flights. And
Speaker 1: it makes sense. It's that whole mindset of you know,
Speaker 1: I know how long it will take me to drive there.
Speaker 1: At least I can leave when I want. There won't
Speaker 1: be those disruptions of a surprise cancelation or delay anything.
Speaker 1: And they're banking on it's just easier than going through
Speaker 1: the whole hassle of something going wrong with your flight. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: You have to build in the time to get to
Speaker 1: the airport, to wait in long security lines, even the
Speaker 1: pre check lines are pretty long at some airports. Then
Speaker 1: there's the time at the airport itself and hoping your
Speaker 1: flight doesn't get delayed or canceled. So they're taking matters
Speaker 1: into their own hands and choosing to drive. Yeah, almost
Speaker 1: three percent of flights were canceled in June. I mean
Speaker 1: every weekend when you come back on Monday, you're kind
Speaker 1: of hearing more flights for cancel over the weekend. You know.
Speaker 1: It's this kind of this constant thing as you mentioned
Speaker 1: all those problems that were happening with staffing shortages and
Speaker 1: so on, and for companies now trying to adjust to this, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, to allow for their employees to make this travel,
Speaker 1: they're having to a lot more time for that. There,
Speaker 1: you know, saying okay, you don't leave a day early. Now,
Speaker 1: it's just the planning that goes into it is so
Speaker 1: much more absolutely and so that could be an additional
Speaker 1: hotel charge as well. If someone's leaving the day before,
Speaker 1: maybe they are still flying, but they want to make
Speaker 1: sure that they leave plenty of buffer to get to
Speaker 1: that meeting. Hotels are very expensive this year, they're full.
Speaker 1: It also means if someone is canceled or delayed and
Speaker 1: they're trying to return, that could tack on an extra
Speaker 1: hotel stay on the other end as well. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: sticking with the hotels and kind of these other events,
Speaker 1: spaces and whatnot. I know a few people in the
Speaker 1: hotel industry, the hospitality industry, and even they're you know,
Speaker 1: they're getting bombarded by the same things that's happening everywhere.
Speaker 1: A lot of staffing shortages and whatnot. And for some
Speaker 1: of these travel companies that handle with with businesses and whatnot,
Speaker 1: and and the business travelers themselves, they're saying, I'm dealing
Speaker 1: with people I've never dealt with before. You know, so
Speaker 1: many people are taking more, taking on more responsibilities, trying
Speaker 1: to accommodate all this stuff. Right as they're staffing shortages,
Speaker 1: people are doing the jobs of two or three other people.
Speaker 1: So one company that books corporate travel mentioned to me
Speaker 1: that they had an experience at a hotel where the
Speaker 1: director of sales was booking and planning the entire event
Speaker 1: rather than just booking the event. And passing it off
Speaker 1: to on site operations staff. They saw the entire process through,
Speaker 1: and we're even on site with banquet staff to make
Speaker 1: sure that everything went off well. And that can be
Speaker 1: tough for organizers and for the workers as well. They're
Speaker 1: running on firing on all cylinders, and for the organizers,
Speaker 1: it can take a while for things to come together
Speaker 1: because people who are stretched then take a little bit
Speaker 1: longer to respond and coordinate. It's interesting, right, everybody had
Speaker 1: been wanting to get back to normal how it was
Speaker 1: before the pandemic, and you know, we're slowly starting to
Speaker 1: get there, at least when it comes to workplace issues
Speaker 1: and drive, you know, and the travel and all this
Speaker 1: stuff associated with it. But men are those growing pains
Speaker 1: to get back there so difficult and planning a big
Speaker 1: corporate event, which are starting to come back now, right.
Speaker 1: You mentioned one event where they were trying to do
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty percent event, pretty big, but twenty
Speaker 1: flights got canceled, fifteen percent of the attendees got affected,
Speaker 1: and it just really throws everything for a loop at
Speaker 1: that point. Yeah, because then you have to decide should
Speaker 1: we start the event with the people who are here
Speaker 1: or should we wait for them to get here, should
Speaker 1: we add on extra time at the end? Is there
Speaker 1: even space in the hotels for these people? Are we
Speaker 1: able to get them flights there? And when will they
Speaker 1: rejoin the event? So it becomes really complicated when you
Speaker 1: have people traveling from all over. Yet there is a
Speaker 1: very strong desire for these in person events to reconnect
Speaker 1: with colleagues and clients as well. So the desire is there,
Speaker 1: it's just all of the rigamarole and getting there. And
Speaker 1: any of the people that you spoke to, did they
Speaker 1: mention anything about trouble with actually getting those rental cars
Speaker 1: if they're opting not to do the plane ride, maybe driving,
Speaker 1: you know, if they're not using their own personal vehicle.
Speaker 1: Was there any difficulty there, because it's another story we
Speaker 1: have been hearing too, just the difficulty and the backlog
Speaker 1: with rental cars. Yes, they've been reserved for months. People
Speaker 1: have learned now that they need to make those reservations early,
Speaker 1: and in some cases people are having an issue because
Speaker 1: they only want the car to go one way and
Speaker 1: those book things are pretty rare to come by. So
Speaker 1: if someone has a return flight and they're hoping that
Speaker 1: that goes off as well. They are just trying to
Speaker 1: get to their initial destination, so it can be really
Speaker 1: tough to find a one way rental car, especially on
Speaker 1: such short notice. Yeah, and they'll tack on fees too.
Speaker 1: If you just want to leave it somewhere else, you know,
Speaker 1: oftentimes they say, well you can, but it's gonna cost
Speaker 1: you extra just even for that. So a lot of
Speaker 1: difficulties with getting back to normal, especially for the business
Speaker 1: travelers and the companies that employ them. Alison Polly, travel
Speaker 1: reporter at the Wall Street Journal, thank you very much
Speaker 1: for joining us. Thanks so much for having me. I'm
Speaker 1: Oscar Ramiers and this has been reopening America. Don't forget that.
Speaker 1: For today's big news stories, you can check me out
Speaker 1: in the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday. So
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