Issued 14 April 2020 Flight Plan 2020: 8 Ways Travel Will Be Different a Few Months from Now This CarTrawler-sponsored report focuses on post-virus consumer behavior and how airlines can best serve a travel economy in recovery. Contents We are travel people ................................................................................................................................ 4 1. Capacity and inventory will decrease through business failures ............................................. 5 2. Closer to home will define leisure travel for the near term ................................................... 6 3. Health safety will become an ever-present factor ..................................................................... 7 4. Consumers will expect low prices, and low prices will stimulate traffic .............................. 8 5. Government investment will have strings attached................................................................... 9 6. Change fees will be even more unpopular .................................................................................. 9 7. A portion of business travel will never return ......................................................................... 11 8. Google will be distracted by other opportunities ................................................................... 11 “It’ll be OK” .............................................................................................................................................. 13 The free distribution of this report is made possible through the sponsorship of CarTrawler. CarTrawler brings opportunities to life through a global online marketplace connecting partners, customers and suppliers. Its market-leading B2B mobility platform expands airline and travel partners’ offerings to their customers, while deepening those relationships and creating substantial ancillary revenue opportunities. CarTrawler provides unrivalled breadth and depth of mobility suppliers across the globe, including car rental, private airport transfer and ride-hailing services. CarTrawler works in partnership with many of the world’s biggest travel brands, providing mobility services for over a quarter of the top 100 airlines globally, including Alaska Airlines, Jetstar, SWISS, KLM and Emirates. As a B2B company they are focused solely on helping airline and travel partners build their brands, not their own. CarTrawler creates innovative, data-led solutions for some of the largest airlines and travel partners in the world, operating from headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, and offices in New York and Melbourne. Issued by IdeaWorksCompany.com LLC Shorewood, Wisconsin, USA www.IdeaWorksCompany.com Flight Plan 2020: How Travel Will Be Different IdeaWorksCompany.com LLC © 2020 Page 1 Flight Plan 2020: How Travel Will Be Different IdeaWorksCompany.com LLC © 2020 Page 2 About Jay Sorensen, Writer of the Report Jay Sorensen’s research and reports have made him a leading authority on frequent flyer programs and the ancillary revenue movement. He is a regular keynote speaker at the annual MEGA Event, spoke at IATA Passenger Services Symposiums in Abu Dhabi and Singapore, and has testified to the US Congress on ancillary revenue issues. His published works are relied upon by airline executives throughout the world and include first-ever guides on the topics of ancillary revenue and loyalty marketing. He was acknowledged by his peers when he received the Airline Industry Achievement Award at the MEGA Event in 2011. Mr. Sorensen is a veteran management professional with 36 years experience in product, partnership, and marketing development. As president of the IdeaWorksCompany consulting firm, he has enhanced the generation of airline revenue, started loyalty programs Jay, with son Aleksei and daughter and co-branded credit cards, developed products in the Annika, in North Cascades National service sector, and helped start airlines and other travel Park in Washington. companies. His career includes 13 years at Midwest Airlines where he was responsible for marketing, sales, customer service, product development, operations, planning, financial analysis and budgeting. His favorite activities are hiking, exploring and camping in US national parks with his family. About Eric Lucas, Editor of the Report Eric Lucas is an international travel, culture and natural history writer and editor whose work appears in Michelin travel guides, Alaska Airlines Beyond Magazine, Westways and numerous other publications. Founding editor of Midwest Airlines Magazine, he is the author of eight books, including the 2017 Michelin Alaska guide. Eric has followed and written about the travel industry for more than 30 years. He lives on San Juan Island, Washington, where he grows organic garlic, apples, beans and hay; visit him online at TrailNot4Sissies.com. Eric, at his favorite summer retreat, Steens Mountain, Oregon. Disclosure to Readers of this Report IdeaWorksCompany makes every effort to ensure the quality of the information in this report. Before relying on the information, you should obtain any appropriate professional advice relevant to your particular circumstances. IdeaWorksCompany cannot guarantee, and assumes no legal liability or responsibility for, the accuracy, currency or completeness of the information. The views expressed in the report are the views of the author, and do not represent the official view of CarTrawler. Flight Plan 2020: How Travel Will Be Different IdeaWorksCompany.com LLC © 2020 Page 3 Flight Plan 2020: 8 Ways Travel Will Be Different a Few Months from Now We are travel people I have had the privilege of working in the travel industry for 36 years and I am determined to make it 40 years. If anyone tells you the travel industry will not rebound, tell them they are “full of hops.”1 Travel has been in my blood my entire life. This begins with a grand opening photo of infant Jay sitting on his mother’s lap poolside at the Travelodge hotel his parents built in Sarasota, Florida. It continues through my adult life in travels all over the world with my family, which includes visits to more than 90 national parks with my kids. My wife and I brought our three adopted kids from Latvia and South Korea courtesy of standby passes for airline employees. My son Aleksei continues the work tradition with a young career in the hotel business. It’s a generational thing, and my current mission has become doing my Hotel industry son Aleksei and airline business part in the recovery of our travel industry. I’m father sharing a hike in the Superstition working to ensure a new generation can join an Wilderness in Arizona, February 2020. industry that has delivered a lifetime of enjoyment for me. Many of you reading this report can share similar stories. It’s certainly true – this business gets in your blood. Fortunately for us, travel is an essential element of being human. We work in a business that is a very meaningful part of modern life. People love to travel and business people need to travel. Travel will return again. Much will remain the same, but elements of it will be very different. This report helps you anticipate the changes that will occur as consumers return to airlines, hotels, vacation rentals, and car hire companies. We can learn from past economic challenges and global events that have tested the travel industry. However, I also rely upon a fair amount of conjecture because this pandemic is unlike anything I have ever experienced. Let’s begin the analysis of how travel will be different a few months from now. 1 I live in Milwaukee which is a beer-brewing town; hops is a core ingredient of beer. It’s also a local replacement for the usual vulgar word one might use in this phrase. Flight Plan 2020: How Travel Will Be Different IdeaWorksCompany.com LLC © 2020 Page 4 1. Capacity and inventory will decrease through business failures IATA estimates global passenger traffic will drop nearly 40 percent for 2020 based upon a spread of COVID-19 beyond earlier predictions. Who knows, subsequent estimates could place the reduction at 50 percent of 2019 traffic. IATA believes revenue will decrease by more than $250 billion for the year. Last year’s revenue estimate was approximately $900 billion, so this represents a nearly 30% loss. As bad as this appears, IATA’s projections might be overly optimistic. As goes the airline industry, so go vast swaths of the travel business to include hotels, vacation rentals, car hire, and sightseeing. Each of these categories will have business failures. Economic reality says many companies will cease to exist or will stumble along and eventually fail. IATA Global Traffic and Revenue Scenario for 2020 % Change in Estimated Reduction of Airlines Based In: RPKs* Passenger Revenue 2020 vs. 2019 2020 vs. 2019 Africa -32% -$4 billion Asia Pacific -37% -$88 billion Europe -46% -$76 billion Latin America -41% -$15 billion Middle East -39% -$19 billion North America -27% -$50 billion Industry -38% -$252 billion Source: Deeper Revenue Hit from COVID 19 press release dated 24 March 2020 (IATA) * RPK designates Revenue Passenger Kilometers (one passenger flying one kilometer). Travel industry capacity will shrink. Many aircraft will remain parked and older models will be scrapped. Weaker airlines will merge with others or simply disappear. Some hotels will close and be repurposed for other uses, or will sit empty waiting for travel to recover. Newly constructed hotels will open during this period which will increase pressure on older room inventory.