Delta wanted to find out what business travelers are all about so
it commissioned Harris Interactive, part of the Louis Harris
research group, to survey 500 road warriors between May 17 and 23.
The prerequisite was that the respondents had to have taken three
or more business trips in the past 12 months.
I was pleased to discover that the results generally reflect my
own attitude toward flying on business. For one thing, the vast
majority of business travelers don't consider work important while
they're flying. Two-thirds of them don't even turn on their
laptops. With rare exception, I'm in the "don't turn it on"
group.
What do they do? Well, 81% read for pleasure, 55% take advantage
of the inflight entertainment, and 64% say they use the time to
"sit and think."
The "sitting" part I get. You're on a plane so you're generally
sitting. It's the "thinking" part that puzzles me. I guess you can
"sit and think" for a while during a flight but I find that if I do
that for long, I start thinking about the fact that I'm 35,000 feet
above the ground so I stop thinking.
The most interesting part of the survey to me dealt with the
sociability, or lack thereof, of business travelers on
airplanes.
I was a little surprised to read that two-thirds of them will
not initiate a conversation with fellow passengers and will talk
only if someone else talks first. Eleven percent would rather not
talk at all. Only 21% say they begin inflight conversations.
I say I'm a little surprised but I do find that my habits have
changed. I used to routinely start chatting with fellow passengers
but I've pretty much stopped doing that.
I don't know if it's just that I prefer solitude or that I
haven't had great luck in encountering stimulating conversation on
planes of late. It must be me.
By the way, 89% of business travelers board planes with every
intention of eating the inflight meal. The survey didn't say what
the other 11% did although I see more people brown-bagging it than
I did in the past.
The survey also didn't say what the 89% who planned to eat did
after they saw the food.