Knew someone years ago.

His company required them to fly coach (they’d only pay for coach).

Now these guys worked on salary plus commission and bonuses.

Here’s the thing. Most of them didn’t want to do the trips unless it was “bigger fish”.

He however was willing to “suck it up” and travel all over (a big factor was a dysfunctional family, so he saw any oppurtunity to be away from them as a bonus in and of itself).

They also were pretty cheap on the hotel/motel stays. Eventually his profitable company got bought out.

Lucky for him though the new company upgraded them on flights to business (and if they were a top performer) even first class.

Suddenly he wasn’t one of the few guys willing to go for “smaller fish” as other salesfolks were now traveling a lot more.

The firm that bought them out realized something that his original company didn’t. People generally don’t like flying to begin with. The agents figured out on their own analysis if its worth it to travel and chase this sale or not, and most decided on the “not” part.

Giving them business and first class travel changed the dynamics a bit so it wasn’t as bad as before and tipped a lot of them towards being more willing to travel for lower volume deals. The change/upgrade in hotels tipped it further. Now they had a lot more guys willing to travel and chase more deals low to high in volume, gaining more customers and generating more sales.

The adage really was, spend more money to make even more money.

They were investing in making something that isn’t desired more comfortable so while its still not liked, its not as bad as before and now these trips become more worthwhile for their agents to be willing to make these trips.

Boosts in morale also increased productivity. There were numerous additional benefits that wound up showing up on the financial statements, but that one would be hard pressed to directly prove a cause and effect with. It wasn’t though a shock for that new company seeing that productivity had gone up….all from treating their guys just a little bit better.

I used to think it was insane anyone in tech would fly business class. What a waste.

I remember when the first start-up I worked at was acquired, I hung out with the CFO and his team at the big annual retreat. They were all talking about how they were flying business class to Japan the next week. It sickened my stomach.

And indeed — that company that acquired us went from an $8B market cap to … bankrupt. Flying coach wouldn’t have made the difference on its own but perhaps being more respectful of capital would have.

Now though … time has gone on.

When a business is profitable, and the team is going long … saving wear and tear on the team matters. That’s why I only fly business now. It’s not to work. It’s not for efficiency. It’s so I can go long, and not wreck my body. As a key leader (CEO and Manging General Partner) I am important at a practical level. If I lose a week due to exhaustion, or it takes me weeks to recover from a terrible trip — the business loses.

Don’t waste money, be even more frugal. But also — invest in your health and going long, when you can afford it.

I remember in my second start-up, Adobe Sign / EchoSign, we got profitable around $6m ARR and we needed to. But I really beat myself up. So bad I couldn’t even walk up stairs to my desk for almost a year. I felt like we had to do that to survive.

But today, it’s more important I can go long.

Because often it doesn’t save money.

Sometimes businesspeople do fly economy, sometimes even on low cost airlines. If you take one of the earliest flights between Milan and London, on airlines like Easy Jet or Ryanair as well as on regular airlines like Ita or British Airways, you will see quite a few businesspeople sitting in economy class with a single piece of luggage: a computer bag. It’s a fairly short flight, and their plan is landing at 9,30 in Heathrow, hop on the Tube, be at the first meeting by 10,30, eat lunch, have a second meeting from 2 pm until 4, pop into a Waitrose to stock up on some decent Cheddar (or a Boots for cheap paracetamol+caffeine, or into a Waterstones for a few books, or at Loop London for some quality knitting yarn…), then take the subway back, catch the 6,30 flight home, land in linate, and be in their own bed by 10 pm. That is made possible because it’s a short flight.

These cramped and thin Easy Jet seats are perfectly fine for a two hours or less flight. Just imagine spending 9 hours sitting like that and unable to sleep…

But it’s not uncommon for business people to fly to much further away destinations, which require 4+ hours of flight. The flight between Milan and New York is around 9 hours, beside while flights to London depart also from Linate (which is easy and fast to reach by subway), flights to the US depart from Malpensa, which is much further away and requires a 50 minutes train ride.

So, the same businessperson who was perfectly happy taking the 7,00 AM Ita flight from Linate to London city and will be content with a 180 euro economy instead of a 250 euro business class seat (not a huge difference in price), will not want to travel coach to New York.

By traveling in business class, the businessperson would be able to sleep comfortably on board, land in New York in the morning much more rested, be able to conduct their business over the course of two days with just one night in a hotel, fly back home also in business class, therefore being able to rest and the next day be at their workplace.

A business class seat isn’t just costlier: it’s wider, more spacious, and can turn almost in a regular bed, allowing the passengers to rest quiten comfortably

Flying economy, the same businessperson ought to leave one day in advance, spend at least three nights in a hotel (and a bunch of meals more), and lose at least two or three days of work. If you factor in all of this, you see that the savings possible with an economy seat aren’t actually huge. You spend 1500 euro less on the flight, but then you also spend overall 800 euro more in other expenses (hotel, meals, etc.) and two or three days of work for a further 500 euro. In the end you have offset the costs only by around 200 euro.

If you are trying to strike a deal, paying a first class flight for your potential client cound be a smart business move

There are a couple more issues to discuss. Quite often the flights aren’t paid by the businessperson’s business, it’s paid by the other counterpart. Suppose you are trying to sell materials or services for 20 million euro or dollars: splurging out to buy a first class seat for the potential client is an excellent move to get said potential more keen on signing that deal. If you buy that client an economy class seat you may save a few thousands, but you will almost certainly lose the deal.

Finally, you are forgetting taxes. To a company the expenses for a business trip can be deducted from taxes, or at least the VAT can. Even if traveling economy is cheaper (and as I have stated it’s not as cheap as it seems), it alos produces lower tax deductions.

I was working for an American telecoms company in Hong Kong. A strategic customer from Japan requested a site visit of our data center in San Francisco. They asked to meet me there.

Now, company policy for long-haul flights was to fly business class. Even though it was an important customer, my boss was not happy about the costs for me to fly to California just for that meeting. To save travel budget, I offered to fly economy on a cheap ticket (Singapore Airlines was offering special economy fares). As I recall, my flight left in the morning HK time, arrived early in San Francisco the same day local time (San Francisco is 16 hours behind HK) where I was able to meet the customer.

After, I had dinner with them and then collapsed in a hotel for 1 night before flying back to HK the next evening. In fact, it was the same flight crew flying back that I had flying out. I still remember the surprised looks of the flight attendants when they saw me.

I learned a lesson on that trip. Unless it’s your company, it’s not worth it.

No one appreciated the fact that I saved the company a few thousand dollars. My boss was an Officer of the company and regularly flew first class herself. She never gave up that perk that I knew of, and she flew a LOT. Moreover, I was so wasted after that trip it took me a few days to recover.

These days I do run my own company and I do travel economy. If I upgrade, I pay personally to save the company money. But working for a large multinational? Nothing to be gained except a lot of discomfort and reduced effectiveness at work.

Marketing was sending one of their brand managers to Singapore. From LA to Singapore, that’s a 16 hour flight. The manager is like 7 or 8 month pregnant. So she requested to fly business class. This was escalated all the way to VP of marketing, and was denied, on the basis that “if they open this door, everyone could then ask for business class”. The lady shrugged and said “nope, I’m not going”. And she had left the company after her maternity leave.

I travel regularly to China for business, somewhere around 4–6 times a year. Just last month, I’d traveled to China twice in 4 weeks. I enjoy traveling home, but it’s 30+ hours in air, round trip each trip. 30+ hours of cramping in economy, dry air, annoying/smelly passengers, horrible food, headache, muscle pain… I’m lucky because I’m petite with short legs.

All of that is OK. It comes with the job, I don’t complain… The worst part is when I have to travel with company execs: all of the execs would fly business class and I’d fly economy, with them on the same plane. In order to save time, the execs often arrange their meetings in such a way that they’d arrive in Hong Kong at 6 am, start meeting at 10 am, and fly back the second day if not the same night. Sure, they don’t mind starting meetings at 10 am after landing 3 hours prior.

They can sleep in business class, while I end up stuffed in economy for 15 hours, get off the plane and arrange car services for the execs, take a shower and prepare for the meeting, PPT and such, arrange car services to the meeting place, coordinate with our business partner to arrange dinner places, translate the entire time, barely get the chance to eat anything, and then another 15 hours of economy back home.

That was my job. I accepted that. I did my best. All the execs were happy with my services.

And I left the company at the first opportunity I had.

Partly because I had walked down the airplane aisles one too many times looking at execs settling down in their comfy business class seats, either politely nod at me, or avoid my gaze altogether, while I kept walking down to economy and stuck there for 15 hours straight. And listen to them complain about how they have to wait for some nobody to get off the plane.

Yes, mister, you get off the plane first because you fly business class. You can arrange the car service and cross the border on your own, no need to wait for little old me.

I always find this mentality a bit weird: save money for your company. For what? So the CEO can buy their 10th vacation home in some godforsaken tropical island I’ll never go to? The guy has a Maserati and drives a Porsche for daily commute. Are you fucking kidding me?

I’ve heard the argument that, we save some money on business class, and the money will go to the coffer for year end bonuses.

Nope. The company can afford business class for their tired employees and good bonuses if they’re making a profit.

The company I currently work for had just recently updated their policy so I can travel in business class. When I got the news, I was jumping up and down in my hotel room (I was actually on a business trip when they announced it). It removed my dread of these trips by about 70%.

I can sleep during that 15–17 hours, I won’t end up with back pains, leg pains, and a pounding headache after I land. This is literally the best perk any company could offer (besides, of course, a raise and bonus).

And you know what, that perk alone would be enough for me to say no to most recruiters trying to poach me.

I’m glad my company offers this perk. and No, I’ll not fly economy class on business trips to save the company money.