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SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
Yeah, nobody is doing that.
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I was about to post about the possibility of exactly what @Seggy is talking about.

You may not see it happening in the property management world, but I guarantee you that it will in a lot of other industries. It was happening before the pandemic, and there’s going to be a lot more of it after.
 
zmiller4 said:
I was about to post about the possibility of exactly what @Seggy is talking about.

You may not see it happening in the property management world, but I guarantee you that it will in a lot of other industries. It was happening before the pandemic, and there’s going to be a lot more of it after.
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I ain't buying it. Defeats the whole purpose.
 
SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
I ain't buying it. Defeats the whole purpose.
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One of the biggest attractions of an airline career for a lot of people is that you get to live where you want.

One of the biggest attractions for a lot of people who leave an airline career is that you get to spend every night at home.

There’s a very legitimate chance that many companies will be going to mostly WFH model with a few days to a week in an office every month.

You don’t think there’s a massive number of people who would rather live somewhere other than, say, the Bay Area while making the same money in exchange for one or two trips a month?

It had already started before the pandemic. One of my beat friends was traveling halfway across the country pre-covid once a month but worked from home the rest of the time.
 
Even if business travel picks up, I don’t see them justifying 15k first class tickets to Asia. Right now for over 12 months, they are used to a $0 travel budget. Even when things open up and they do fly, I can see them saying take coach (or economy plus) to China. It’s not just a question of when business travel comes back, but also when do business high revenue tickets come back.
 
zmiller4 said:
One of the biggest attractions of an airline career for a lot of people is that you get to live where you want.

One of the biggest attractions for a lot of people who leave an airline career is that you get to spend every night at home.

There’s a very legitimate chance that many companies will be going to mostly WFH model with a few days to a week in an office every month.

You don’t think there’s a massive number of people who would rather live somewhere other than, say, the Bay Area while making the same money in exchange for one or two trips a month?

It had already started before the pandemic. One of my beat friends was traveling halfway across the country pre-covid once a month but worked from home the rest of the time.
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That's not what I dispute about the theory. What I dispute is that companies will then spend money on travel expenses to see these people in person. I know a great many companies using distributed workforces. Hell, a lot of us were doing it long before the pandemic. But we weren't, and have no plans to, fly those distributed staff members into the office on anything approaching a regular basis. I never have for my distributed staff, going on two years with them now. That's what Zoom is for.
 
SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
That's not what I dispute about the theory. What I dispute is that companies will then spend money on travel expenses to see these people in person. I know a great many companies using distributed workforces. Hell, a lot of us were doing it long before the pandemic. But we weren't, and have no plans to, fly those distributed staff members into the office on anything approaching a regular basis. I never have for my distributed staff, going on two years with them now. That's what Zoom is for.
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Gotcha.

I’m saying that people will willingly pay hundreds a month in tickets to live where they prefer. I consider that business travel.
 
zmiller4 said:
Gotcha.

I’m saying that people will willingly pay hundreds a month in tickets to live where they prefer. I consider that business travel.
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Ahh, I see. I guess I just don't see that being a significant number of people. I think people will either work remotely where they don't have to go to the office, or they'll live where the office is (or within driving distance).
 
Cessnaflyer said:
Do you take it to dinner with you to close the sale?
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We're talking about employees. What sale are you referring to?

We close almost all of our new accounts having never met the client. Hell, we've never met the vast majority of our clients who have been with us for years. Many of them live on the other side of the planet. Your idea that you need to meet people to close sales is...odd.
 
SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
We're talking about employees. What sale are you referring to?

We close almost all of our new accounts having never met the client. Hell, we've never met the vast majority of our clients who have been with us for years. Many of them live on the other side of the planet. Your idea that you need to meet people to close sales is...odd.
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For a simple service like property management then there is no reason to meet. I’ve sold many houses without meeting the buyer once.

For the corporate flying we are on 3 or 4 flights a month for project meetings and bidding. They do usually double the flight with commercial that can get them close to the client. Our crews are on rotation and use quite a bit of commercial service as well. Zoom just doesn’t cut it when you need to get engineering on site.
 
Cessnaflyer said:
For a simple service like property management then there is no reason to meet. I’ve sold many houses without meeting the buyer once.

For the corporate flying we are on 3 or 4 flights a month for project meetings and bidding. They do usually double the flight with commercial that can get them close to the client. Our crews are on rotation and use quite a bit of commercial service as well. Zoom just doesn’t cut it when you need to get engineering on site.
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Yes, but engineering travel has largely been continuing throughout the pandemic, anyway. It's part of the current travel numbers.

I know people, especially pilots and salespeople, love to push this idea that you need to meet someone and shake their hand to close a big deal, but the bean counters who get to make the decisions on whether you get to do that or not have a very different idea of what is necessary.
 
SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
Ahh, I see. I guess I just don't see that being a significant number of people. I think people will either work remotely where they don't have to go to the office, or they'll live where the office is (or within driving distance).
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I don’t think most companies will go entirely to remote work. I don’t know what my employer is going to do, but I suspect many in my industry will go to a combination of WFH with some office time. And I bet it’s similar for many others.

But also, think about how many pilots commute. I probably spent an average of 10-12hrs a week on commuting, and even at paltry early 2010’s regional FO pay that’s still like $500.
 
zmiller4 said:
I don’t think most companies will go entirely to remote work. I don’t know what my employer is going to do, but I suspect many in my industry will go to a combination of WFH with some office time. And I bet it’s similar for many others.

But also, think about how many pilots commute. I probably spent an average of 10-12hrs a week on commuting, and even at paltry early 2010’s regional FO pay that’s still like $500.
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I just don't see the average person paying to go to work. At all. If pilots had to pay for the actual air travel itself, not just the hotel or crashpad, I guarantee most of them wouldn't do it, either. But hey, I could be wrong. This is all educated guesswork at this point. The next few years will be interesting.
 
SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
I just don't see the average person paying to go to work. At all. If pilots had to pay for the actual air travel itself, not just the hotel or crashpad, I guarantee most of them wouldn't do it, either. But hey, I could be wrong. This is all educated guesswork at this point. The next few years will be interesting.
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Interesting for sure, and I’m just coming at this from a non-airline, corporate-employed perspective.

But think about pilots—time is money, and a huge portion of pilots spend a lot of time getting to work because they don’t want to live where they’re based...so they *are* absolutely paying to get to work. They just may not realize it.

Actually, given the number of mainline pilots that saved $9 by staying at the Quality Inn O’Hare rather than the 4 Points, or refused to spend $20 on a bus ticket to MDW so they could get home that night...they probably *don’t* realize it.
 
I’m not sure I agree that business travel will be greatly reduced. It’s not like employees had a green light to travel pre-Covid without justification after all, and if there were a legitimate reason that warranted the time and expense then, why would those self-same reasons not be justifiable now? It’s not like the bean counters have suddenly decided to be persnickety about spending.
 
I'm in a WFH job that requires a regular amount of (company paid) travel to the mothership. Now that some of the COVID restrictions are lifting, that will amount to about 75% at home/25% business travel. Not all fields are like mine, but that in person stuff is a requirement that could not be adjusted to a remote alternative.....at least not more cheaply than just having me travel for the next few years. While I was hired during COVID after the airlines stopped hiring, the job itself was always (pre-COVID) advertised as WFH with some travel. I'm not saying I am representative of all, or even lots, of the workforce. But this job certainly involves a ton more travel as a remote worker than it would have if I had been local.
 
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