The recession is over, we are returning to profitability, our results have exceeded budget, and so can I please go back to sitting in business class? No. The asymmetrical rule of corporate expenses is that it's a whole lot easier to reduce costs than to increase them. When the downturns come, everyone starts selling company junks and laying off staff. But when things start looking up, there is rarely a similar level of enthusiasm for putting everything right back where it was.
Business class travel is one of the more noticeable victims of the downturn. We all accepted that a reduction in travel costs was necessary if it meant a few less people would have to be laid off. But I'm starting to suspect that my new way of life in economy class might be rather more permanent than I assumed.
Sure, a short hop to Manila in economy is over so quickly that it's hard to get upset about the soggy cheese sandwich that substitutes for a meal. But when it comes to the nearly four-hour slog to Singapore or Seoul, sitting next to the family with the new baby or the guys taking advantage of the free booze, it's a lot harder to land ready for work.
Now this wouldn't obviously be a big deal really, except for one thing: flying business class was, up until very recently, the norm. All of us who've had our travel budgets cut know what we're missing. And there's another asymmetric rule of business expenses: that it's infinitely harder to cope with worsening working conditions than to cope with improving ones.
But the world has changed. Tolerance for extravagance by men in suits at their employers' expense has largely evaporated. In its place is a general public disdain for corporate excesses of any kind. This is particularly noticeable in any industry that is, or was recently, reliant on government money to stay afloat. Most of my colleagues are trying very hard to ignore this new reality, but at least for the moment it has the effect of making any decision to increase expenditure very difficult without a good reason.
So is there a good reason to let executives switch up from economy to business class travel? Not really.