Flight sales fall for first time since 2009

Business travel air sales fell during the last three months of 2011 – the first drop in transactions since 2009 – according to the latest figures from the GTMCGuild of Travel Management Companies.

Air transactions by the GTMCs 36 members fell by 0.2% to 1.51 million from October to December – the drop mirrors the fall in UK’s overall GDP of 0.2% also announced today over the same three-month period. It was also the first fall in flight sales since the third quarter of 2009.

Despite this drop, air travel transactions were up by 5% for the whole of 2011 to 6.6 million transactions compared to 6.2 million air sales in 2010. Overall transactions by GTMC members including hotels, rail and car hire also rose by 5% to 15.7 million last year.

GTMC chief executive Anne Godfrey said:  “There has to be cause for optimism because there was growth of 5% in overall transactions across the year.  But people stopped flying in the last quarter of 2011 – the fact that the 0.2% fall matches the drop in GDP shows how fundamental business travel is to UK PLC and how it drives the economy.”

Godfrey added she remained “cautiously optimistic” about the prospects for business travel in 2012 but said January’s BSPBilling and Settlement Plan - a system used by IATA-accredited passenger sales agents to allow the selling, reporting and remittance of air ticket sales figures, which will be released in early February, would  show if the downward trend on air travel had continued into this year.

Other elements of business travel fared better in the final quarter of 2011 with hotel transactions up by 6%, rail increasing by 3.1% and car hire jumping by 21.1% compared to the same three months in 2010.

Godfrey said the rise in hotel bookings was “encouraging” but said that rail was “a bit concerning” because growth was flattening out after being a “star performer” in 2010.

“Rail was showing double digit growth through 2010 and during the first quarter of 2011,” she added. “But it has been falling away for the last nine months of last year.”

The GTMC will be holding its AGM on Monday, January 30, in London.