Insights into the business air travel behaviour of residents in the East Midlands Lisa Davison (University of Ulster) Tim Ryley (Loughborough University) Presented in The Geography of Business Travel session at the RGS conference 2013

1. Insights into the business air
travel behaviour of residents in
the East Midlands
Lisa Davison, University of Ulster and
Tim Ryley, Loughborough University

2. Overview
 Introduction
 Background
 The „Propensity to Fly‟ project
 Research design
 Survey response
 Results
‒ Socio-demographic influences
‒ Attitudes to air travel
‒ Characteristics of the most recent business flight
 Insights

3. Introduction
 The aim of the paper is to examine the characteristics of
business travellers who fly as part of their work
 It outlines the profile of business travellers, considering
‒ Socio-demographics (i.e. age, gender),
‒ Links to leisure travel (i.e. number of leisure trips the
previous year)
‒ Types of business air travel (i.e. airlines, airports,
destinations)
 This provides insights into the air travel behaviour of
residents in the East Midlands

4. Background
 The air travel market can be segmented in a number of ways
‒ Travel purpose: business and leisure
‒ Airline: Full service carrier, charter, low cost carrier
‒ Travel class: business and economy
 Demand for business travel
‒ A globalising market requires connectivity to deliver
economic benefits
‒ Full service carrier, business class is product targeted at
this demand
‒ Demand is increasingly met by low cost carriers and in
economy class cabins

5. Background
 Influences upon demand can be identified as organisational
and individual (Aguilera, 2008)
 At the organisational level service and non-service sectors
exert a demand (CAA, 2010)
 The availability / attractiveness of alternatives to travel bear
an influence (e.g. Gustafson, 2011)
 At the individual level gender plays an influential role and
many cases so does income (Aguilera et al., 2007; CAA,
2009; Lian and Denstadli, 2004)
 Users of full service carriers are significantly older indicating
their hierarchical position and status (Evangelho et al., 2005)
 Business travellers are found to be more frequent flyers in
comparison to leisure travellers (Dresner, 2006)

6. Propensity to Fly project
 „Propensity to Fly‟ was an EPSRC 30-month project
(November 2006 – April 2009)
 Objectives:
‒ Develop stated choice models of individual travel
behaviour to determine propensity to fly
‒ Identify segments of the population with greatest
propensity to fly
 Particular focus on East Midlands residents – also on
leisure trips using low-cost airlines
‒ But collected information on air travel in general too,
including business air travel

7. Research design
 Data was collected via a series of surveys targeted at
households in the East Midlands region
 Each questionnaire collected
‒ Background on the respondent‟s air travel the previous
year (including the flight frequency for business and
leisure purposes)
‒ Their travel from the nearest airport
‒ Future air travel choices
‒ Their attitudes towards air travel
 Focus here, is on respondents in employment, comparing
those who have flown for business with those that have not

8. Research design
Completed Method Sample selection Response
EMATS1 Autumn
2007 /
Spring 2008
Postal
household
survey
Two sub-areas selected in each
Northampton, Nottingham, Hinckley
and Bosworth, North East Derbyshire
and Newark and Sherwood using a
combination of clustered and random
sampling
605
respondents
(10%
response
rate)
EMATS2 Spring 2008 Internet
household
survey
Internet panel survey across the
region with quotas to ensure a
representative socio-demographic
profile
508
respondents
EMATS3 Spring 2009 Postal
household
survey
Two sub-areas selected in each
Northampton, Nottingham, Hinckley
and Bosworth, North East Derbyshire
and Newark and Sherwood using a
combination of clustered and random
sampling
559 (11%
response
rate)
Total: 1672

9. Research Design
0 10 205 Miles
Newark and Sherwood
Hinckley and Bosworth
North East Derbyshire
Northampton
Nottingham
0 100 20050 Miles

10. Survey response
EMATS
1
EMATS
2
EMATS
3
Total
Number in employment
(% in sample)
355
(59%)
285
(56%)
303
(54%)
943
(56%)
Number taken business travel the previous year
(% of those in employment)
44
(12%)
54
(19%)
39
(13%)
137
(15%)
Of this group, the number of business flights the previous year:
1 flight 15 22 17 54
2 flights 9 14 8 31
3 flights 3 6 3 12
4 flights 6 3 1 10
5+ flights 11 9 10 30

11. Gender and taken a business
flight in the last 12 months
EMATS 1 EMATS 2 EMATS 3
Male
Female
 Males comprise 93 out of the 137 „business flyers‟ across
the three surveys ( 2, p< .01 all surveys)

12. Other socio-demographic influences
 Respondents in full time employment are significantly more
likely to be business flyers than respondents who are self
employed or are in part-time employment ( 2, p< .01 across
surveys)
 Respondents with higher personal incomes are more likely to
take air travel business trips ( 2, p< .01 EMATS 1 & 2)
 Those who fly for leisure purposes are also more likely to fly
for business purposes ( 2, p<.01 EMATS 2 and p<.1
EMATS 2 & 3)
 Age (all surveys) and property type (collected EMATS 3)
have no significant relationships

13. Attitudes to air travel
 Each questionnaire used a 5 point Likert scale to gauge to
level of agreement with the statements
‒ “Air travel is essential to the UK economy and to the
country‟s continuing prosperity” – general agreement
‒ “Air travel is a significant contributor to climate change” –
general agreement
‒ “Passengers should pay more to fly because of the
negative environmental aspects of aviation” – general
disagreement
 Two surveys found that „business flyers‟ are significantly
more likely to agree that air travel is essential to the
economy ( 2, p< .# EMATS 2 2, p< .# EMATS 3 )
 One survey found business flyer are more likely to agree that
air travel is a significant contributor to climate change ( 2, p<
.# EMATS 2)

14. Characteristics of recent flights
 EMATS1 asked respondents to provide details about their
most recent return flight
 34 refer to a business trip (26 in the previous year), of these
‒ 14 use Low Cost Carriers (ryanair, easyJet, bmi baby)
‒ 15 travel from an airport in the Midlands
‒ A further 15 travel in excess of 80 miles to a London
airport
‒ Destinations within the UK and Ireland, e.g. Aberdeen,
Belfast, Dublin, are popular from East Midlands airports
 When asked about the likes and dislikes of the journey
positive comments relate to speed and convenience of the
trip, negative comments, to delays and length of the journey

15. A high-value, long-haul
business segment
Departure
airport
Destination Airline Amount
paid per
person
Liked about air
travel
Disliked about
air travel
Return
business
flights
Heathrow Hong Kong British
Airways
£1,500 Lounge Space on
board
5+
Heathrow New York Virgin
Atlantic
£750 Free drinks, very
helpful staff, design
of inner plane,
efficiency
None
Birmingham Hydgrabad Emirates £581 Inflight service Length of
journey
None
Heathrow Washington,
D.C.
Virgin
Atlantic
£1,500 Comfort and food Length of travel 2
Heathrow Johannesburg Virgin
Atlantic
£6,500 Flat-bed upper class
experience
Rude limousine
driver to and
from airport
5+
Heathrow Tokyo Virgin
Atlantic
£3,480 Service - Limo pick
up UK / Japan
Length of flight 5+

16. Insights
 This research, focusing upon East Midlands residents,
highlights that individuals taking air travel business trips tend
to be male, in full-time employment and on higher incomes
 There is some indication that they also fly more frequently for
leisure purposes.
 This research highlights a number of business air travel sub
groups
‒ Infrequent versus frequent business flyers
‒ Low cost versus full service carrier users
‒ Domestic versus international travel
‒ Trip versus facility focus
 There is opportunity for further qualitative and quantitative
research to develop these insights

17. References
Aguiléra, A., 2008. Business travel and mobile workers, Transportation Research
Part A, 42, pp. 1109–1116
Aguiléra, A. Massot, M.H., Proulhac, L., 2007. Work-related travel and the
organization of daily mobility. A case study. In: Conference of the European
Regional Science Association (ERSA), Paris
Civil Aviation Authority – CAA., 2010. Flying on Business – a Study of the UK
Business Air Travel Market Part 2, December 2010 Analysis of the UK Business Air
Travel Market
Dresner, M., 2006. Leisure versus business passengers: Similarities, differences,
and implications, Journal of Air Transport Management, 12, pp. 28–32.
Evangelho, F., Huse, C., Linhares, A., 2005. Market entry of a low cost airline and
impacts on the Brazilian business travelers, Journal of Air Transport Management,
11, pp. 99–105.
Gustafson, P., 2011. Managing business travel: Developments and dilemmas in
corporate travel management, Tourism Management, 33, pp. 276-284.