Originally Posted by BOH
In my circle of business colleagues (most of used to work together in the early 90's for a big company) it's amazing how everyone was adamant in those days they could not possibly be expected to work on arrival in Europe or even the next day (to NA) if they had to fly Economy. I can still remember the old arguments of "we need to be fresh; it's silly to lose a large contract because we could be tired; we need to be as sharp as possible; the difference is only £xx" etc.
Now we are all either running our own businesses or are senior budget / P&L holding managers in large companies. And surprise, surprise it's perfectly OK now for them and their employees to fly in Y and AFAIK, no one has lost a deal for any of the above "I was tired / not fresh enough" reasons
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The CEO of one of my clients has a strict Y policy for everyone, including himself. He is not a member of any FF scheme and instructs his secretary to always pick the cheapest deal. Most months he flies LHR to IAD/ORD twice, JNB once and probably about 6 times within Europe. All in the back, does not even pick a seat normally and just takes what the check-in allocates him - which is often a middle as he turns up quite late for check-in. He is in his early 50's as well so it's not as if he is young with endless stamina and energy.
He runs a £10M company and AFAIK has also not lost a single deal because of this policy. He laughs at the reasons for J that are regularly trotted out and feels that it's all in the mind, ie if someone feels they could lose a deal because they will not be fresh / sharp enough after being in Y then they probably will lose that deal anyway as their mental attitude is wrong. A very inspirational chap (although personally I would still fly in J everywhere given the chance
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To be fair, he sounds like a tough cookie. Tougher than me - and I'll freely admit that. Does he also check himself into the cheapest hovel-like hotel? Take a bus to the meeting rather than a taxi? How far does he extend his cost-saving mentality?
For me, it wouldn't be case of me saying to an employer "I'll lose the deal because I was too tired / not fresh", I'm often working under those conditions. It's more of a case that I value my comfort and well-being, and nice hotels, nice seats on planes, nice cars to travel around in, well, they all add to that.
Admittedly, most of my always-J flying friends work for serious multinationals, Credit Suisse, MorganStanley, KPMG, PWC etc, and it seems, at least if you're entering at graduate level, these companies don't skimp when it comes to looking after their employees. Yep, they work them into the ground with painfully long hours, but the facilities and benefits they provide to their employees are second-to-none.. they ensure their employees feel valued.