Do you travel by plane for work?

[mwmw]

If so, do they pay for business for you? Was this always company policy, or did you have to become senior?

When I used to work on a job with a lot of flying, business class was only paid for If the flight was 10 hrs or more. We mostly flew to Europe and NY so no one ever got this.

The worst was the regular trips to company HO in New York . I went every couple of months for 3 days It always went
Mon go into work, 5pm taxi to Airport for a an evening flight.

Arrive evening, eat dinner, sleep ( well try to, usually woke in the night with weird jet lag)

Work Tues to Thurs in HO staying in the attached company owned flat at night

Thurs 5pm. Leave HO taxi to JFK for the red eye flight
Arrive UK airport early morning in Fri .
Taxi from airport straight to UK office
In for around 9am l. Work til 4pm at the earliest usually 5/6pm. Go home and spend the weekend recovering from the jet lag

I loathed it. They refused to pay for business class which might have meant we got some sleep coming back but they insisted we come to work .no going home to change/shower etc on the Friday and no early finish either

I still remember the exhaustion of those weeks and I was young and childfree. I used to fall asleep in the taxi from the airport to the office!!
Travel for work often sounds much better than it is, especially if you are junior in role (as I was then)

Used to. The policy was business class if flight is over 5 hours, no matter how senior or junior you were.

Previous company - business if over 5 hours, SVPs could do business everywhere.
Current company - no business, ever. No exceptions.

Business class if over 5 hours irrespective of seniority. It's pointless if it's less than that anyway as the planes that used for Euro hops don't have lie flat or club class facilities. It's just the front of the plane with slightly wider seats and a tiny bottle of cheap bubbles.

I work in a university. We are supposed to be able to if its 5+ hours (university policy). In practice, the funding bodies will only pay for economy, so you generally aren't allowed. In reality, staff manage their own project funds and would usually rather spend the money on more cheaper trips than fewer more expensive ones.

Last company said over 6 hours you could book business class. Under that was only economy.

Business if the flight is over 5 hours (European business so most are under that) otherwise economy. 4 different companies, variations on the same policy and nothing to do with level

Never Never. Lots of travel for work. I work for a type of public sector employer. My boss travels many flights/month... has some kind of way to get cheap upgrades from economy to other airplane classes (he usually pays the extra charges out of his generous own wages).

DH has always worked for private sector, he had one business class flight (to Australia).

Yes, business class if over 5 hours which I think is a fair policy

Yes, like most people economy short haul and business long haul.

Only BC if it’s an overnight flight to meeting

I'm a PA so I book the travel, it depends who's paying and if there's a budget. Usually business for very long haul like Singapore. We look at business to the US but it depends if we can get a cheap ticket and if I like the person travelling!

I don't but DH flies a LOT. His company policy is economy within Europe. As we are in Scotland he is frequently flying with whatever airline flies that route which is often Easyjet / Ryanair /Flybe which don't have business anyway.

Outside Europe, usually business. But he has flexibility - opted for an economy flight direct from Scotland to North America rather than having a business class flight leaving from Heathrow.

Yes. If any leg of the trip is over four hours, it is all booked as business class for all employees. If over a certain (senior executive) level, its first class. Our HQ site is in San Francisco so about 80% of travel is there.
All train trips are first class irrespective of length.

Yes. BC for any flights longer than 5 hours. Economy for short haul. That’s the policy for everyone, irrespective of seniority.

Yes, but no BC, even on long haul, for anyone. Tiny company, we don't have the budget.

Yes, and no, we don't get anything but economy under any circumstance. I'm in Australia at the moment, and 24 hours on flights each way is not funny in economy, and you can't even use your miles to upgrade as you can only do one class, and BA don't let you get upgrades like United do.

We're not even allowed first class rail travel though

Yes, but I have to stand up.

(am cabin crew)

DH flies on business, but not business class even on very long journeys.

In fact, he was booked on FlyBMI this week ....

I travel for work. For 6+ hours it's premium economy, 10+ hours it's business. If you're really senior you can do business all the time, except if you're flying in the continental US where you always have to do economy. Compared to a few others I think my company is quite stingy!!

Mainly U.K. internal flights for me. All grades get exactly same access. I’ve only done international a couple of times for my work and economy as within Europe. Business is four hours plus for us.
Husband flies more regularly and does business but works on plane usually. If I accompany him, we pay for my flights unless I’m doing lots of meet and greet events as his wife. All his executives get same deal. Few lower grades would need to travel abroad.

No and have to travel on standard class on trains too, even if first is cheaper, which it often is on the route that goes from where we are to London.

Also not allowed to extend journeys to add personal time overseas even if appropriate leave taken, own hotels paid for and plane ticket works out cheaper.

Not allowed to collect air miles or similar either. If they thought they could get away with it, they'd make us surrender the points we get when paying for fuel for our company cars.

In my company it’s business class if over 6 hours, whatever you’re position, but unless VERY senior expected to take cheapest BC option and change (but only once) if need to. Also expected to crack on when get there and back, hence BC beds.

I always expect a full report of my boss’ BC experiences as I only get to book them, not actually go

I fly a lot for work. I can go Business class if the flight is over 6 hours