I would also factor in the time changes and jetlag ... I never seem to have a problem flying west even in eco. I don't do as well flying east especially when I have been in the other time zone for a week and my body has adapted to the time zone..... And I should include that I CAN sleep in eco.

A higher education institution I'm associated with has a J policy if flight is over x hours (I think 5). Unless invited as a speaker to a conference or something like that, travel expenses come out of one's own grant budget. Most colleagues opt to fly in Y, even on punishing schedules, since that money can be used to employ someone, or purchase equipment etc. Note that the money (or savings) do not affect one's personal income in any way.

I'm more ambivalent: often booked Y+ (e.g. on BA) when available, never J, unless upgrading myself with miles. Would love to justify flying J, but can't see myself doing it from my own budget any time too soon.

Running a lab is much like running a small business, except that one doesn't make any more money (necessarily) by having more grants, papers etc., nor does one get rewarded for not spending it all within the budget timeframe.

tb

I'm not saying I'm uniquely "wired," just that there are many, many people like me who are thrilled to have jobs that let us travel hundreds of thousands of miles in Y (and are willing to use an unpaid personal day beforehand and afterwards, if extra rest is needed). Given the reservoir of such talent out there in this economy, I'm surprised anyone can demand J/F travel from their employer. If they said "I can't do my job properly unless you send Beluga caviar to my office every day at noon," they'd be laughed out of the HR office, but somehow a $10,000 international J ticket (in place of a $1500 Y ticket) is considered reasonable.

In any case, it sounds like some companies realize that in fact the work gets done no matter what class the employees travel in (e.g. the Cisco example), otherwise the employees get replaced. Hopefully this will mean the end of the J "perk" sooner rather than later.

Expectations depend on sector too... I'm a manager of a non-profit association. For my office, about 1/2 of the revenue comes from foundation grants and 1/2 from member dues, conference revenue, and such. It is a tight budget. All travel is in economy, no matter how long the trip, level in the organization, or anything else. It is simply a matter of money. We're just happy to find the travel funds, using economy travel, to make those trips that are necessary.

See... I think this is where we differ. If your talents are somewhat unique and you add actual value to your employer's bottom line in a way that somebody they bring in off the streets doesn't, you're in a completely different position.

I've never once had to demand anything in regards to travel. My employers and clients have always offered J or F, no questions asked.

Maybe it's different in the US but in Germany, there is a very limited pool of qualified people and hence companies over here do a lot to keep their talents happy.

Try to look at is this way: Your employer sends you out in order to make money or save money. It's only fair he look after you then. If it weren't important to him, he would not be sending you.

Ingvar Kamprad, the billionaire founder of Ikea, flies economy and so do the rest of his employees. Just like the cisco example, it seems hard to justify the perk of J if even the CEO is flying Y. Would certainly take the difference in price if offered since it would be more than my monthly salary:) My company pays for C for flights over 6 hours btw but not for "foreign" employees coming from India or Brazil for example. Strange double standard or are indians and brazilians used to less pampering than their "western" counterparts?

I don't think anyone here is "demanding" it. My company offers it, and it's one of the things that keeps me there instead of going somewhere else. The grass is greener here.

That said, my flying in J or F is not dependent upon the company offering it. I fly so much I earn the status pretty rapidly, and UG's are frequent. If I am facing a TPAC for 14hrs and there is no auto UG, I can use the miles I have to buy up to F. And it makes a huge differance as to the quality of the work that gets done.

Showing up in Asia with a thrombo in your leg and baby barf on your shoe is less likely to close that deal or get that account than walking off that plane rested and calm is.

Having done the 250k+/year long haul intl thing, there is no way I could do it in Y and be able to function at a high level, and I would be worried about the effect on my health.

Out of curiosity, have you done this amount of travel in the past? and in what class?

At 300k per year you are literally spending weeks of time on planes and in airports. Difficult to justify the cost of J over Y if you are flying once a year but with such a heavy travel schedule it is practically a necessity if you want to keep at it for any amount of time.

I have been doing 200-300k a year for the last 6 years. The first 5 of that we flew Y because thats what our VP flew. Now I am with a new company and in the position to set the standard for our division.

Thanks to Flyertalk and ExpertFlyer, I don't have to actually fly too often in the back.

This year for my division is a big growth year and I want to be somewhat frugal with my travel budget since every dollar not spent, goes to the bottom line. I hope to not have this dilema next year!

1st world problems.
 

It's interesting to hear how so many people cannot fly in coach. Before I flew in business class, coach was the norm. That was how I flew. But ever since I flew business (and a lot of it), business has now become the norm.

It is very much a first world problem since so many people who want to fly 10-14 hours just naturally fly coach; there is no other option. We've become very "spoiled".

Whenever I have to fly internationally, now, I frantically search for how I can get into business class (if flying on my own dime), with either a super-cheap fare or with an upgrade. I spend hours and hours and hours (way more than the flight itself) researching things so I can spend those 10 hours in business class. It's pretty crazy how much time I spend on this subject...

Total 1st world problems! :eek:

That's true. Much of the world will happily take an 18 hour dangerous bus ride with a guy carrying his live chickens sitting in the next seat. Where we want to be pampered with Champagne, excellent IFE and if the chicken is under-cooked we throw a fit. :D

But business is business. Productivity and execution trumps all.

My own experience:

I currently fly YYC-FRA-TXL approximately once every six weeks. At the end of the flight there is a three-hour drive to a point between TXL and POZ. The usual layover in FRA is four hours.

Could I do it in Y? Well, it may be possible.

Would I do it? Not if I could help it.

At a bare minimum, I would insist on a day to acclimatize, so the client is paying for an extra day of my time, plus a hotel room in TXL. The difference between discount J and discount Y is considerably narrowed once this is taken into account.

Plus, as mentioned, it is a perk, and softens the blow of fourteen straight twelve-hour days.

Now, my time and expenses are billed directly to the client, so J is not a cost centre to my employer. It is standard in our contracts, though, that flights outside NA are in J, and none of our overseas clients have objected to this.

And don't even get me started on YYC-FRA-DXB-MCT; trying to mandate Y in a case like that would quickly lead to "Find someone else" from most of my colleagues.

YMMV.

Best regards,

TB-ES

There's also the difference between frequent planned travel, and occasional (forced) travel. I work for a higher ed institute, and the people who travel all the time (admissions, donor relations) go coach almost exclusively to save on their budgets. But when faculty or senior staff who don't normally travel are asked to make an international trip, biz class is one of the reasons they're willing to do it.

For me a major consideration of whether I'll travel in Y is being 6'4". If I am booking months in advance for vacation, I can most likely secure exit row seats, in addition to having time to recover after I land.

If I'm booking a few weeks before travel for business, exit row is very unlikely and will need to be able to hit the ground running to get my work done. Granted, travel is somewhat "optional" for my job, but if they didn't offer to fly me in J, which luckily they do, I definitely wouldn't opt to travel.

Good for you. I'm not like that, and many other people are not like that as well. I've done the 16-hour flights in Y for personal trips and I'm a mess afterwards. However it's a personal trip so I can take my time to recover. For a business trip I don't usually have that luxury. My employer recognises that.

We also charge our travel expenses back to clients so it's not really an expense for us.

Right, but many people are like that. If one prospective employee says "I won't be productive unless my company buys me $10,000 plane tickets," and the other is grateful to have a job and travel in Y, which should the company hire? As I said before, everyone is replaceable, and any company that buys their employees anything other than Y is flushing money down the toilet.

so true
 

So true. No matter how egotistical and self-important the employee or boss thinks he/she is, they are replaceable. From Nobel Laureates to NBA basketball stars to CEOs, we're all replaceable.

if you can't afford to fly your employees in J, at least make the ground time more productive by buying them lounge passes, premier line perks, etc. AA has that Five Star service thing which isn't all that expensive relative to the fare difference of J, yet it still delivers a lot of the J amenities at the airport...

I can deal with a 12 hour flight in Y, but if you start throwing in long lines and no lounge to pass the ground time, then Y just proceeds to suck more.

depends on what the CEO is doing. If all he's doing is meeting an established client to go play golf, then there's no need for him to sit in J/F. If his worker is on the way to somewhere to try to land a major sale, then his worker should probably be resting in J while he's sitting in Y. There's lots of cases where a boss will go with his workers to a meeting and the workers will sit in J and the boss will sit in Y because the boss isn't actually doing much other than just shaking a few hands...

Well, all I can say is that I'm glad you don't write the travel policies for my company.

Let's take a further look at my upcoming trip (times are MST (GMT-7) / CEST (GMT+1))

06:00 / 14:00 Wakeup
08:00 / 16:00 Arrive at office to bill six hours before leaving for airport
15:00 / 23:00 Leave for YYC
15:30 / 23:30 Arrive at YYC
17:40 / 01:40 +1 day Flight for FRA leaves
03:15 +1 day / 11:15 +1 day Flight arrives in FRA
07:35 +1 day / 15:35 +1 day Flight leaves for TXL
08:45 +1 day / 16:45 +1 day Flight arrives in TXL
09:30 +1 day / 17:30 +1 day Baggage claimed & rental car picked up
12:30 +1 day / 20:30 +1 day Arrive at hotel

Now, if you want to spend three hours driving on the autobahn after 27 hours without sleep, you're more than welcome to do so. Please PM me, though, so that I can make sure I'm nowhere near the area when you're making the attempt.

I, on the other hand, think it's dangerous. And, as much as I like my employer, risking my life on the autobahn so that they can save our client a couple of thousand dollars in travel costs ... well, I don't like them that much. And if they can find someone to replace me who's willing to take that risk, so be it.

But, maybe I'm just a fragile flower.

TB-ES

Wow, so now flying in economy class is literally a danger to life and limb. The drama is escalating! :)

My point still stands: if you're incapable of functioning or doing your job after a long flight in Y, you should fly out a day earlier to allow rest. If you don't want to do that, you should find a job that doesn't require travel. There will be hundreds of people in line to replace you.

I realize many companies don't agree with this ethos, but I think this will be the new way of doing business sooner rather than later, when they realize the money that can be saved. You don't see Cisco struggling to attract talent.

Throw in all the smilies you like: I've run this route half a dozen times over the past year and, even flying in J, I'm just about dead when I arrive at the hotel.

As for flying out a day earlier, that implies an extra day's worth of my time to be billed to the client, plus hotel, meals, and incidentals. The difference between a K fare and a Z fare shrinks pretty rapidly when that's taken into account.

Look, I'd never insist on flying J for a YYC-YEG flight (especially as it's only available once a day) or for a YYC-IAH flight, or, well, any North American destination. But TATL/TPAC/TIND? You'd better believe that I expect to fly in J. No company I've ever worked for has even attempted to suggest otherwise. And no client has ever balked at coughing up for J on TATL/TPAC/TIND flights.

Cisco may not be stuggling to attact talent, but in the industry I work in, jobs are going begging. I get calls from recruiters looking to see if I'd consider switching jobs at least twice a week.

But hey, sneer all you like. Get that policy implemented where you work. And best of luck in attracting senior talent when it becomes bruited about that their comfort and safety aren't of any concern to you.

TB-ES

I think you are at fault for making blanket generalizations. Sure, if all else is equal between two candidates for a traveling post, the one who is happy traveling in Y might bet selected. But this criteria is way, way down the list of things that companies are looking for in talented staff. Experience, skills, execution ability, and if you are in sales, a good Rolodex, all count for way more than travel preferences. These reasons are part of why the business class cabins are always pretty full when I fly long haul. And note that I fly Euro airlines mostly which don't upgrade their elites or give out coupons. Most everyone in the cabin paid to be there.

I have had several jobs at companies that had economy-only policies. However the CEO permitted me to travel in business class on long haul flights because he knows what it is like to do heavy intercontinental travel. And because I was executing well. The CFO would often bring my expense reports to the CEO to complain and the CEO pointed him to the income I generated for the company and then told him to shut up and pay me.

And Cisco loses as much talented staff as they gain. Not entirely due to travel, but that is part of it for some. In fact they have lost of lot of their top people recently.

I just boarded CDG-ATL with AF. Biz was oversold so they bumped me up to F. And there is a fully loaded DL flight on the same route, same time. Just a small data point.

At my company the policy/arrangment varies by position and type of contract you work on,
For me, the policy is: if the customer is unwilling to pay for business class, the company will pay for a ticket upgrade if the flight is under 3.5 hours if you request it and they approve you of course. Which is not always the case.

For my particular role and function all contracts that I take on stipulate that if the job site is more than 3.5 hours total flying time from my base, it is the employer's responsibility to purchase travel tickets in either premium economy or business class.
Usually they'll buy me Y+ when available instead of J class when flying within North America. Which I'm fine with.
When posted on jobs in Europe or Asia and occasionally Africa they always pay for business.
No use in me being exausted and out of wack on arrival ;)

Nice. Enjoy it. In october i got delayed and missed my AC CDG-YUL, they rebooked me on AF as everything else was full, I can't say it's my favorite F class but I did like it a lot.

I agree with the points above. We are dealing with people, not robots. Keep them happy and they will do their best for the job. The "always the cheapest" attitude usually gets the minimum effort from employees.

As much as we like to travel (as FTers), traveling for work is not always the fun and games. You leave family and friends behind, you miss various events (birthdays, weddings), you spend a lot of time on your own and it's tiring. The least an employer can do to overcome this is provide some incentive, and that is traveling in J. I see it as an investment in people, in keeping them happy and motivating them to perform.

Agreed. At the top end of the labour market, there's a global war for the most talented people in progress, and in the most profitable industries it can be pretty cutthroat. Premium travel is a useful and cheap (in the big scheme of things) tool to attract and retain top talent.

Thanks for the insinuation that I'm a hypocrite, but of course this is the policy where I work. We're expected to either take a personal day to arrive a day early, or hit the ground running after 20 hours of flying and layovers. We manage just fine. And we get about 200 applicants (from some of the top people in the field) for every position we advertise.

Again, I applaud you for being able and willing to do this. I know I wouldn't. Take a personal day so you don't arrive all knackered? I don't even know what to say. It sounds like a really crappy deal... but maybe I'm just too spoiled ;-)

Not really sure where the "hypocrite" insinuation took place - I never implied that you were flying J while you made subordinates fly Y - but I'll let that part of it go.

As I did outright state in one of my previous posts, I'm not insisting on riding J just to prove how important I am; YYC-YEG, YYC-YMM, YYC-IAH, YYC-MSY, YYC-YHZ are routes I've flown for the job in Y without the expectation of even Y+

I will say, though, that if you expect someone to fly (as per the OP's situation) 300K+ in international Y every year, please make that clear in the advertisement for the position, so that I can reduce your HR department's workload by 1/200th.

TB-ES

And to respond to the OP's original point:

Hell, yes, on any individual flight I take for personal reasons, even internationally, it's hard to justify J. For example, I'm flying YYC-YVR-HKG-SIN at the end of the month, and, while I'm hoping to upgrade at least the YVR-HKG portion of the flight, it's been booked in Y.

However, this is a personal flight; I have absolutely no demands on me when I arrive in SIN, and, being *G through AC, I get lounge access throughout the trip.

I simply wouldn't fly 300K+ per year for personal reasons unless I could afford J.

As the OP is required to fly this much, I don't see J being so much to ask for, but I don't set travel policies for companies that get 200+ applicants for every advertised position. I do, however, have over 15 years of experience in an industry that regularly expects travel to the field, and J for intercontinental travel is standard throughout the industry.

TB-ES

I'd compromise and get a Y,B,M (Delta) ticket that is eligible for upgrades. My company makes us purchase discounted economy tickets that I can't upgrade even with Diamond Medallion status and SWUs.

Your point doesn't stand. You think people flying 8+ hour flights regularly should just schedule a day of rest? Where does that come from? Mon - Fri, reducing billable hours? Oh, no, I guess my personal days like weekends or holidays. For people that travel 80-90%, you expect them to what, be too delirious to see their families or too busy flying on their personal time? People burn out. They won't last doing that for any length of time.

And, no, there are not hundreds or thousands of people waiting in line to take the kind of jobs that provide travel in J. J goes to effective sales reps that bring in big money. Speciality jobs where it's highly-qualified and a very specific skill set. And well, if you want to treat employees like cattle, they'll just fire you as their employer and go work somewhere else.

You don't think so, huh? What decade are you living in again?

I'm not sure if people are being willfully obtuse or actually misunderstanding my point. Every day I meet extremely smart, capable people who are perfectly functional after grueling trips in Y. Maybe J travel is considered the standard in certain industries, but it is by no means a "necessity." If all airlines did away with premium cabins tomorrow, sales reps and managers wouldn't cease to sell and manage. Things would get done pretty much like they always have, albeit less comfortably for those doing it.

Why do I have the feeling that you are under six feet tall? Meanwhile to your point, there are also people who thrive on five hours' sleep nightly. More power to them; however I'm one of the unfortunate ones who generally needs eight hours.

I know this is FlyerTalk, but I'm still surprised that one of the most effective options to reduce travel costs hasn't been touched on much yet: reduce the amount of travel.

First, the OP should do an analysis of the travel patterns or projections for this new division. Are the assumptions about the amount of travel required accurate? Could several trips be lumped into one, longer trip? Could some trips be eliminated entirely? Of course, there are some trips that are completely, totally essential--initial sales calls, emergency trips when something goes horribly wrong that require an upper-management presence. But simply continuing to do all these trips because "that's the way it's always been done" may mean overlooking a good opportunity to exhibit some of the management savvy your company is probably looking for.

Second, I'd be asking if some of the remaining contacts couldn't be handled by video conferencing. There are some trips where hands-on contact may be required or where the personal touch outweighs the inconvenience of getting there, but video conferencing is clearly an effective method of getting the job done with the least investment of time and money.

The equation should involve some balancing between simple cost cutting (which may brand you as someone with little vision) and increasing productivity (which seems to be key with many companies). If you are able to cut your travel in half and spend your saved time in figuring out other innovations for making your division profitable, I think you're better off than just saying, "I'll fly in Y every time."

No, people understand you, your point's just not a very well thought out one, and here's why.

1. You think that you can find thousands of people to fill any hypothetical position at a moment's notice. False... High unemployment does NOT mean a big pool of qualified applicants for senior level positions. Even today, in 2012, many companies are struggling to recruit.

2. I'm quite smart and capable after a flight in Y too. Not the 30th time in as many weeks and as many time zone changes though. Nobody is. I won't -- and neither would you -- do this for a living for years. Thus, you would have expensive turnover and poorly trained staff.

3. Airlines are not going to abolish J. That's a stupid thing to suggest.

4. Your comments about cisco are irrelevant. Their staff is largely local, and has very few travelers. In their travel-heavy positions, I imagine people do not spend very long.

Um... I have done this for years. As have most of my colleagues. Many have stayed on for decades, some well past retirement age.

That's why I wasn't suggesting that they would actually do it. It's called a "hypothetical statement."

Really? A company dealing mostly in expensive, specialized, enterprise-level equipment doesn't have a large pool of traveling sales and service reps? Huh, you learn something new every day.

Well, someone's being willfully obtuse here — I think a there's a general consensus on that.

But, more seriously, are there flights in J that could be taken in Y without diminishing the flyer's effectiveness? Sure.

But you've been arguing from the beginning that J is never (or, at best, almost never) justifiable from a business standpoint. I disagree.

More to the point, most businesses disagree.

Now, you may think that this means the people who set and approve the travel policies allowing for J on long-haul flight are mouth-breathing morons who are breaching their fiduciary duty to the company.

Which may be the case.

Then again, it may not.

People may be beating down your door to apply for jobs with your company, but I'd argue it's in spite of, not because of, your travel policy.

TB-ES

Not so much willfully as carelessly -- my online prose doesn't go through the same gamut of revisions and clarifications as the stuff meant for professional consumption :)

But from what I've read in this thread, the underlying justification for J tickets is primarily "the other guys do it." Company A offers it as a perk, because it's standard industry practice and if they didn't then Company B would have an additional enticement by which to poach A's best people. Fine, companies compete for top employees, I'll give you that. However, the "well-rested"/"can't do my job without J/F" arguments are in my opinion poorly-justified. Motivated people tend to pull through in difficult situations, and if all companies hypothetically decided to stop booking premium cabins, I doubt we'd see much difference in productivity.