Business travellers favour air over rail
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Business travellers will opt to travel by air for a domestic trip if a rail journey is more than three hours long, a new HRG study has found.
Its research found that although business travellers are three times more likely to book rail over air from London to Manchester or Newcastle, they would switch to a flight to go to Edinburgh despite the journey only 40 minutes more than the Newcastle train journey.
Flights are more favourable despite the higher price tag than train tickets, which can save between 24-37% for each journey. Stewart Harvey, group commercial director at HRG said travellers should also focus on door-to-door times when booking instead of journey length.
“We have seen a noticeable trend for clients to accept longer journey times. Travellers do understand that they can get more work done on a train, but actual cost and time savings aren’t always clear,” he explained. “Time equals money, so clients must make sure that their travel policies reflect this for the total door-to-door journey, rather than just the air or rail travel time.”