Remote Work Touching Down at Airports

Good morning from Skift. It’s Friday, December 9. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

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Episode Notes

Airports are continuing to transform as they rapidly adapt to post-pandemic trends, including the rise of co-working spaces. Flexible office platforms are increasingly making airport settings for co-working spaces as more business travelers return to the skies, reports Corporate Travel Editor Matthew Parsons in this week’s Future of Work briefing.

Parsons cites IWG, which recently opened its second co-working Spaces lounge at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. The co-working space has six working areas and four meeting rooms. IWG, which has roughly 50 hybrid workspaces in or close to airports worldwide, designed the lounge for passengers who need to work while waiting for connecting flights as well as travelers working nearby.

The number of flexible workspaces located in airports has increased 83 percent since the end of last year, according to data and analytics platform CoworkIntel.

Next, a group representing U.S. travel agents told Congress on Thursday it backs a proposal mandating airlines be more transparent about all of their fees. But it’s concerned about how much agents would be required to tell clients over phone calls or offline meetings, writes Travel Experiences Reporter Selene Brophy.

Brophy reports the U.S. Department of Transportation wants airlines and travel agents to disclose all fees to customers at every step of the booking process — whether in person, over the telephone or booking online. But Eben Peck, executive vice president of the American Society of Travel Advisors, told lawmakers that requiring travel agents to make those disclosures would cost the industry close to $9 million annually. Peck suggested that travel agents could disclose all fees if clients asked about them.

Travel agents are required by law to make up to seven consumer disclosures per transaction when selling flight tickets, including airline baggage fees and code-sharing. Brophy adds some of those disclosures can be fulfilled via the Internet of an e-ticket receipt.

We conclude today with a look at France-based airline French Bee. It’s confident about its U.S. expansion being successful despite fierce transatlantic competition from JetBlue Airways and Norse Atlantic Airways, reports Edward Russell, editor of Airline Weekly, a Skift brand.

French Bee will launch service to Miami from its base at Paris-Orly Airport on December 15. The carrier also plans to add flights to Los Angeles and Newark next year. Russell writes that airline executives are seeing strong demand for flights to Europe with the strong U.S. dollar making travel to the continent less expensive.

Although both JetBlue and Norse have announced plans to add Paris to their maps next summer, French Bee CEO Marc Rochet doesn’t view either airline as a threat to his company. Rochet said flying into Orly Airport is more appealing to French Bee’s customers than Charles de Gaulle, Paris’ other major airport, which Russell writes caters more to connecting flyers.