Airport News
Business travellers 'turning to low-cost carriers'
Fri, 11 Apr, 2008
Budget airlines are becoming increasingly popular with British business travellers, a new study has found.
The 12th annual Barclaycard Business travel survey discovered that British Airways remains the airline most frequently used for business travel, accounting for 28 per cent of the UK market.
However, other carriers that have traditionally performed well in the business sector were found to have lost out to low-cost carriers.
Ryanair climbed to third in the rankings after their market share increased from three per cent to eight per cent in the past 12 months.
Rival cut-price carrier easyJet performed even better, with its 15 per cent share making it the second most commonly used airline by UK business travellers.
Denise Leleux of Barclaycard Business predicted that more companies would switch to low-cost airlines in the coming months, explaining: "They are becoming even more cost conscious - perhaps more so this year than before."
Meanwhile, British Airways has revealed it carried 2,718,000 passengers during March - 2.8 per cent fewer than in the corresponding period in 2007.