Business travellers' pet peeves

Frequent flyers are frustrated by delays, crying babies and chatty seatmates

Frequent flyer Daniel Fafard, a Montreal-based executive with L'Oréal Canada, is always first on the plane -- avoiding the obstacle course of other passengers' oversized carry-on luggage.

Jack O'Neill of Minneapolis never wears boots to the airport; they're too cumbersome to remove quickly during security checks. "Always wear shoes. You are going to have to take them off," advises Mr. O'Neill, chief operating officer for Carlson Wagonlit Canada in North America.

Whenever Joseph Palumbo of Toronto's York University travels, he gets to the airport in plenty of time to "hurry up and wait" -- unless he happens to be in Beijing, where the check-in and security measures are so efficient that he just breezes through.

"In China, especially Beijing, my goodness, what a system! They have got probably 100 agents at the airport checking your ID, your visas and everything else. There is absolutely no waiting there whatsoever . . . you almost have a concierge service as you are entering the terminal," Mr. Palumbo, executive director of the career development centre at York's Schulich School of Business, said in a recent interview

As with many business travellers, lineups and delays top the list of Mr. Palumbo's travel frustrations. Others take issue with crying babies, fellow passengers who bring too much luggage on board and chatty seatmates.

Carlson Wagonlit Travel recently commissioned a poll of 1,200 Canadians and Americans about what bugs them most about business travel. The survey, conducted by KRC Research, found that 32 per cent of those polled reported that their biggest pet peeve was fellow travellers who don't check their baggage when they should, followed by crying babies (13 per cent). But the unchecked baggage irks Americans more than Canadians.

"Canadian business travellers' biggest pet peeves . . . are travellers who disturb them by not letting them work, sleep or read (31 per cent versus 10 per cent for U.S. travellers)," Carlson Wagonlit reported last week.

Mr. O'Neill said the complaint about babies is an age thing, with those travellers aged 30 and under expressing the least tolerance.

The survey also found that 21 per cent of North American business travellers rate the time they spend away from family as the most negative impact of business travel.

Employers, on the other hand, find the longer road trips more cost-effective than frequent day trips, Mr. O'Neill said. "Employers are becoming a lot more aggressive. If your job requires you to be on the road, make a week of it. Don't do day trips. It's more expensive."

Employers are cutting costs in other areas as well which, for many, means no more luxury hotels and eggs benedict on the company tab.

Alain LeGault, president of the Canadian Business Travel Association, said it is increasingly common for employers to negotiate preferential rates with hotels. "And you might get them to throw in a free continental breakfast -- so that's breakfast taken care of."

The North American business travellers and the 300 employer representatives surveyed in the poll commissioned by Carlson Wagonlit projected that business travel spending will remain the same or increase this year.

However, Mr. Legault, manager of travel and relocation at Nav Canada, said the anecdotal impression he gets from Canadian employers is that many Canadian organizations will hold the line on business travel spending, or reduce their travel budgets.

Mr. Fafard, senior vice-president of L'Oréal's consumer products division in Canada, said in an interview last week that his company now makes its travel dollars stretch further -- but the amount of travel has not decreased.

"We have changed some of our travel habits. We're no longer flying business class on every flight we take," said Mr. Fafard, who is travels frequently across Canada, to the United States and Europe.

He is, he concedes, one of those Canadians who does not talk to his seatmates.

"You know what? Once you take out your laptop, it basically cuts down the conversation," said Mr. Fafard, who has found the airplane a great place to get work done.

"I take my laptop or I take some paperwork."

When he travels with colleagues, they turn the trip into a mile-high business meeting. "You make the time efficient."

Source: By VIRGINIA GALT - WORKPLACE REPORTER - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/