After a long delay, a strong rebound in demand from the IT sector has spurred air travel for business purposes, said Luke Goggin, Virgin Atlantic’s vice president for global sales.
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“The industry that had not caught up fast was technology and IT. That has completely changed. In the fourth quarter, the fastest growing and most valuable customers are technology and IT customers,” Mr. Goggin said in an interaction with The Hindu.
He explained that the corporate travel recovery post the COVID-19 pandemic started with small businesses, followed by financial services which have back-end offices and regional offices in India.
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The London-headquartered airline has announced the launch of its fourth flight to India, which will connect Bengaluru with London Heathrow from March 31. With Bengaluru being India’s IT capital, the airline expects to see flights out of the city to account for its highest share of corporate travellers out of India by as much as 30% of the aircraft capacity.
India is Virgin Atlantic’s second biggest international market after the U.S. The airline, with 41 aircraft in its fleet, also operates twice daily flights to Delhi and a daily flight to Mumbai. In 2019, it operated only a single flight to Delhi. About the airline’s future plans for India, the senior executive said, “India is such a big economy, the fastest growing GDP and population, I can’t think of anywhere else where you’d actually want to point your aircraft right now. Our challenge would be to get more aircraft.”
Business from corporates not only help airlines to fill up the business class and premium economy seats but also provides predictability around seat bookings.