Business, first class or economy?

In a sign of harder economic times, business air travellers are moving down-market and taking shorter trips.

Travel agents are reporting that executives, particularly those in the finance sector, are increasingly slumming it in cattle class.

Round trips to Europe that might have taken a week before are now completed in three or four days.

Phil Hoffman, managing director of Phil Hoffman Travel, told The Australian Financial Review the volume of travel isn’t shrinking, but companies are saving money by asking employees do it a bit rougher.