Philippa Kaur

THE MARKET for packaged foods is a competitive one, where price rises by one firm risk pushing shoppers into the arms of rivals. Companies in the industry deal with soaring costs by hedging against spikes in commodity markets using forward contracts, reformulating products so they contain less of the pricier foodstuffs or, failing that, surreptitiously making packages a bit smaller while keeping the ticket price the same.Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on More

THE MARKET for packaged foods is a competitive one, where price rises by one firm risk pushing shoppers into the arms of rivals. Companies in the industry deal with soaring costs by hedging against spikes in commodity markets using forward contracts, reformulating products so they contain less of the pricier foodstuffs or, failing that, surreptitiously making packages a bit smaller while keeping the ticket price the same.Amid pandemic-related supply-chain bottlenecks, labour shortages and crop failures, food firms have repeatedly done all that. Even so, they have had to raise prices, often less judiciously than is ideal (see previous article). The invasion of Ukraine, known as Europe’s breadbasket thanks to its rich soil, by Russia, the world’s top exporter of wheat, is forcing their hand once again. Together the two countries account for 29% of international wheat sales and nearly 80% of sales of sunflower oil. Disruptions to those critical supplies are pushing up food companies’ costs just as energy costs are also sky-high as a result of the war.It will be harder for European food companies to pass price rises to consumers than for American firms. Supermarkets in Europe are more concentrated than in America, and drive a harder bargain with suppliers. Walmart, America’s biggest, controls 17% of the domestic market. Its British and German opposite numbers, Tesco and Edeka, respectively, have nearly 30% of theirs. Moreover, cost-conscious Europeans shop more at discounters such as Aldi or Lidl. They are also less fussy than Americans about branded products and buy more of the retailers’ own labels.On March 23rd General Mills, the American maker of Cheerios and Wheaties, among other sugary fare, reported healthy margins and quarterly sales that were higher than in the same period in 2019, before the pandemic (though flat compared with last year). The firm insisted that demand for packaged food should remain strong all year as many people continue to work from home at least some of the time. Robust appetite for its products will, the firm says, allow it to raise prices to offset the rising costs of commodities.That may be optimistic. Shoppers’ patience with inflation is wearing thin on both sides of the Atlantic. Investors expect margins to narrow. The share prices of big American, European and Chinese food firms alike took a knock after Russian tanks rolled onto Ukrainian fields on February 24th (see chart). ■For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in economics, business and markets, sign up to Money Talks, our weekly newsletter.This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Food fight” More

FEW AMERICAN business tactics are as peculiar in a freewheeling capitalist society as the manufacturer’s suggested retail price. P.H. Hanes, founder of the textile mill that would eventually become HanesBrands, came up with it in the 1920s. That allowed him to use adverts in publications across America to deter distributors from gouging buyers of his knitted under garments. Even today many American shopkeepers hew to manufacturers’ recommended prices, as much as they would love to raise them to offset the inflationary pressures on their other costs. A growing number, though, resort to more sophisticated pricing techniques.A seminal study from 2010 by McKinsey, a consultancy, estimated that raising prices by 1% without losing sales can boost operating profits by 8.7%, on average. Getting this right can be tricky. Set prices too high and you risk losing customers; set them too low and you leave money on the table. Retailers have historically used rules of thumb, such as adding a fixed margin on top of costs or matching what competitors charge. As energy, labour and other inputs go through the roof, they can no longer afford to treat pricing as an afterthought.To gain an edge, shopkeepers have been turning to price-optimisation systems. These predict how customers will respond to different pricing scenarios, and recommend those that maximise sales or profits. At their core are mathematical models that use oodles of transaction data to estimate price elasticities—how much demand increases as the price falls and vice versa—for thousands of products. Price-sensitive items can then be discounted and price-insensitive ones marked up. Merchants can fine-tune the algorithms to prevent undesirable outcomes, such as double-digit price surges or larger packages costing more by unit of weight than smaller ones.These systems are becoming cleverer thanks to advances in artificial intelligence (AI). Whereas older models used historical sales data to estimate price elasticities for individual items, the latest crop of AI-powered ones can spot patterns and relationships between multiple items. Makers of pricing software are incorporating new data sources into their models, from customers’ tweets to online product reviews, says Doug Fuehne of Pricefx, one such firm. The cloud-based platform developed by Eversight, another provider, allows retailers to test how slight increases or decreases in the price of, say, Heinz ketchup at different stores affect sales not just of that specific condiment but across the category. It is used by big manufacturers such as Coca-Cola and Johnson & Johnson, as well as some supermarkets (Raley’s) and clothes-sellers (JCPenney).All this makes pricing systems “much more three-dimensional”, observes Chad Yoes, a former executive at Walmart who oversaw pricing at the retail behemoth. Retail bosses are keen to promote this sophistication to investors, who value firms’ pricing power at a time of high inflation. In February Starbucks, a chain of coffee shops, boasted about its use of analytics and AI to model pricing “on an ongoing basis”. US Foods, a food distributor, has touted its pricing system’s ability to use “over a dozen different inputs” to boost sales and profits.Price-optimisation may make prices more volatile. “Retailers are pricing faster today than they ever have before,” says Matt Pavich of Revionics, another pricing-software firm. That is especially true in the fast-moving world of e-commerce. But even Walmart reviews the prices of many items in its stores 2-4 times a year, says Mr Yoes, up from once or twice a few years ago.What pricing systems do not do is lead inexorably to higher prices. Mr Pavich calls this misconception “one of the biggest myths” about products like his. Sysco, a big food distributor which rolled out new pricing software last year, is a case in point. The firm says the system allows it to lower prices on “key value items”—as price-sensitive bestsellers are known in the trade—and raise them on other products. It can thus increase profits by expanding sales while maintaining margins. That keeps investors content and shoppers sweet. ■For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in economics, business and markets, sign up to Money Talks, our weekly newsletter.This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Artificial prices” More

WHEN HARRY told me that he was leaving the company, one of the first things he said to me was that he didn’t like sentimental goodbyes. I have decided to take him at his word. Everything you will hear me say tonight is unvarnished and to the point, just like the man himself.Harry has been in the finance department for seven years. In that time he has not done anything remotely funny. I asked several people if they had anecdotes about him, and the best they could come up with is that he once accidentally changed a formula in the annual budget spreadsheet. Since the mistake was quickly spotted and fixed, it had no impact at all. I asked Charlotte, who has worked with you closely for three years, if she had anything to share. She was silent for what seemed like hours, and then said that she thinks you like walnuts. (Ah, I see you shaking your head, so that is neither funny nor true.)No matter. We do not hire people because they have an amusing habit of getting stuck in lifts (yes, Brian, I do mean you) or promote them because they can recite pi as a party trick. It is true that a mediocre colleague who happens to have some eccentric habits (and yes, Brian, I still mean you) would have produced a much more enjoyable leaving event than this painfully stilted affair. But that should not obscure more important things. Harry has been a diligent, competent and well-liked employee. He has been a good manager. Every job he has done for us he has done well.Not so well that he is indispensable, of course. We did offer him a raise when we found out he was planning to leave, but we opted against throwing in a sabbatical. In the end we recognised that he wanted to go and decided that we would cope just fine. There is no shame in that. Everyone is dispensable; it’s just a question of how quickly people come to that realisation. In Harry’s case, it was neither all that slow nor embarrassingly fast.Since then, we have all been waiting for him actually to leave. Once it is known that a person is moving on from their role, everyone immediately prices it in. People with ambition start writing memos about what they would do if they had that job. Rebecca’s pitch arrived the day after we announced your departure. I can see now that you didn’t know that, and that she didn’t expect me to mention it.Meetings quickly start to disappear from calendars. Decisions are deferred or simply taken elsewhere. It’s like the period between an election and an inauguration: there is someone in office but no one in power. By the time we get to this point, holding a glass of Prosecco and staring at you as if you are an endangered species, it’s something of a surprise to find that you still exist.Will Harry be forgotten? Not at all, though for reasons that he may not fully grasp. This is an evening in which the person who is leaving receives presents (as well as a card from people whose names you don’t recognise but who just loved working with you). But the exchange goes both ways. The leavers have a parting gift of their own to bestow: a convenient scapegoat.When someone dies, the convention is not to speak ill of the departed. When an employee exits a company, it’s the opposite. Things that don’t work as well as they should can be laid at the door of someone who won’t answer back. Frustrations that have been suppressed can finally be blamed on someone. When we speak of you, we will say things like “Harry had many strengths but…”, and we will persuade ourselves that you held us back a bit. This will not be true, but it will be convenient. I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you that we are grateful for this final act of service, which can last for as long as a year after someone has actually left the building.After that, memories tend to fade. I wish I could promise you that you are part of company folklore, or that your role in banning plastic straws from the office will reverberate through the ages. Instead, the only guarantee I can give is that no one here will ever read your exit-interview notes.This may all seem a little sad. You have spent many years at the company, and yet will probably leave comparatively little trace. But you should still feel pride in your time here. To have done your work well and to leave at a time of your choosing are achievements that are beyond most people (and on both scores, Brian, I am still thinking of you). So please raise your glasses to Harry. He has been an excellent colleague and won’t really be missed.For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in economics, business and markets, sign up to Money Talks, our weekly newsletter.This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “The toast with the most” More

COSMETIC PROCEDURES used to be the preserve of middle-aged women and often involved surgery. Today they are increasingly sought by girls who want the photoshopped faces of their favourite social-media influencer, and by a growing number of men wishing for fewer wrinkles, fuller lips and sharper jawlines. Globally, more than 14m nonsurgical procedures were conducted in 2020, even amid the pandemic, up from fewer than 13m two years earlier. Increasingly, scalpels are giving way to syringes.Research and Markets, a firm of analysts, reckons that the global sales of non-invasive aesthetic treatments, currently around $60bn, could more than triple by 2030. A large part of that growth will come from injectables. These include Botox and other substances that freeze facial muscles, as well as dermal fillers which plump softer tissue. Demand has been fuelled by the proliferation of selfies and, during the pandemic, high-resolution video-calls. Snapchat and Instagram filters give users a glimpse of what they could look like with a filler-generated “liquid facelift”. The contrast with what they see on unadorned Zoom can be stark.In America 2.4m injectable procedures were carried out in covid-hit 2020, roughly one for every 100 American adults. About 700,000 such treatments were performed on Germans, not renowned for an obsession with looks. Brazilians, who are famously beauty-obsessed but much poorer, subjected themselves to around 500,000. Demand for “prejuvenation” work is especially strong in Asia, where younger patients (for, despite the convenience these are still medical procedures) want to pre-empt a craggy visage before any lines actually appear. Since injectables have to be topped up every few months, they guarantee producers of the substances and clinics that administer them a source of recurring revenue. The younger the customer starts, the better for business.According to a report by McKinsey, a consultancy, over 400 aesthetics clinics, which administer injectable treatments (among others including things like laser fat removal) raised more than $3bn from investors over the past five years. In 2020 AbbVie, an American pharmaceutical firm paid an eye-popping $63bn for Allergan, which has controlled nearly half the market for injectables since it launched Botox for aesthetic use two decades ago and Juvederm, a dermal filler, a few years later.New products are beginning to threaten Allergan’s dominance. Hugel, a South Korean company, now has a rival offering that is half the price of Botox. It is eyeing the Chinese market, where the stuff is still less common than dermal fillers. Ipsen, a French drugmaker, and Merz Pharma, a German one, also make Botox-style injectables. Ipsen’s Dysport has done well in Turkey and Russia. Merz’s sales are growing briskly in the emerging economies of Asia and Latin America.Some modern dermal fillers, meanwhile, are formulated with ingredients such as hyaluronic acid that are typically found in mild skincare products. That is less offputting to potential customers than Botox, which is derived from a toxin that occurs naturally in spoilt sausages. Other new treatments are dispensing with foreign substances entirely—though this doesn’t always seem all that more appealing. Certain cosmetic clinics offer to inject stem cells from a patient’s own fat into their face, or platelets from their blood to rejuvenate the skin.There is a wrinkle. The injectables craze, especially among youngsters, worries regulators. Botox is a prescription drug in most places but many dermal fillers are not. “Treatments are often trivialised on social media and people don’t understand the full ramifications of what can go wrong,” says Tijion Esho, a cosmetic surgeon in Britain. Misplaced injections can lead to abscesses or, in some cases, necrosis. An outcry from doctors and victims of botched procedures forced the British government to announce in February that it would require a licence for people administering nonsurgical treatments. England has already banned them for under-18s. ■For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in economics, business and markets, sign up to Money Talks, our weekly newsletter.This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Botox smiles” More

SPEAK TO THE bankers and industrialists at the top of India’s economic pyramid and you hear a common refrain. All Indians, they contend, are at heart socialists—themselves included. The popularity of the Indian version of “Shark Tank”, a TV celebration of capitalism (similar to “Dragons’ Den” in Britain) in which ordinary people seek funding for their business ideas from a gaggle of successful entrepreneurs, suggests that this conventional view may be out of date. The show’s 36-episode run, wrote the Hindustan Times, shifted the topic of dinner conversations throughout the vast country from cricket to business plans. Terms like “gross profit” and “TAM” (total addressable market) have entered common parlance among its 1.4bn people.Shows with star judges awarding talent (and panning its absence) have long had a place on Indian television. But they have historically involved song and dance, not spreadsheets. Sony Entertainment received 85,000 applications for “Shark Tank”. These were whittled down to 198 pitches presented to juries of five judges, themselves chosen to reflect India’s new business elite (rather than being scions of industrial conglomerates they had founded firms peddling everything from cosmetics and drugs to a matchmaking app and electronic payments).The enterprising hopefuls’ televised presentations were heavier on enthusiasm than polish. Rather than being a liability, this resonated with viewers who, as many blogs and social-media posts attested, saw themselves in the contestants. For “Shark Tank” was, in its effervescent diversity, not unlike Indian society. Of the 67 startups that secured some money from the judges, three-fifths were run by first-time entrepreneurs. More than two-fifths had female co-founders and a third were co-founded by someone from a small city rather than a business hub like Bangalore, Delhi or Mumbai. Only nine of the winning businesses had a founder who boasted a degree from the prestigious engineering and business schools that are the traditional pathway into India’s economic aristocracy.Some of the winning pitches seemed humdrum (banana crisps). Others were ingenious (an engineer whose family had been devastated by the abrupt death of their cow developed an electronic ear clip to monitor bovine health). Some were both (a bicycle-mounted pesticide sprayer). Even some losing proposals won recognition. Reversible dresses (good for a day in the office and a night on the town) were dismissed by one of the judges as suitable for a mop; his wife subsequently appeared wearing one on TV.“Shark Tank” may have struck a chord because it came at a time when Indians as a whole were becoming more enterprising. Indian entrepreneurs have registered over 310,000 new businesses in the past two years, up from 250,000 or so in the previous two (see chart). The ranks of retail stockpickers doubled between March 2019 and November 2021, to 77m. Some of this happened out of necessity: the pandemic up-ended lives and led millions to seek new opportunities. But some was probably by choice. The number of candidates sitting India’s exacting civil-service exam appears to have peaked in 2016. Some eggheads who would once have become bureaucrats may have opted to become capitalists instead. ■For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in economics, business and markets, sign up to Money Talks, our weekly newsletter.This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Shark attack” More

IN THE EARLY 1970s a handful of former employees at IBM, then the world’s biggest computer-maker, spent weeks pulling double shifts. During the day they quizzed the workers at a nylon plant in southern Germany about what exactly made their factory tick. At night they painstakingly turned this knowledge into code and tested it. The result of all this toil was one of the world’s first comprehensive pieces of business software. The company behind it, SAP, is still Europe’s mightiest technology titan by revenue, with annual sales of nearly €30bn ($33bn). It has a market value of €123bn as it celebrates its 50th anniversary on April 1st (no joke).Such stamina is a feat, but also raises worrying questions about the European tech industry. Why has SAP remained Europe’s top digital firm for so long? Why has the continent spawned no trillion-dollar Apfel or Amazonie? Might one eventually emerge? And could such a development be speeded by the EU’s landmark technology law, the Digital Markets Act (or DMA for short), which the bloc was expected to approve after The Economist went to press on March 24th?SAP’s longevity is the easiest to explain. Once firms opt for a certain type of business software, it becomes tedious (and sometimes impossible) to replace it. That guarantees the purveyor a regular revenue stream and a captive market for extensions. SAP also had the foresight to design its software from the start so that it did not become obsolete when the underlying computing infrastructure changed. As a result, it is one of the few information-technology giants that has survived three “platform shifts”: from mainframe computers to more distributed “client-server” systems, then to the internet and, now, to the computing cloud.Why SAP remains a lonely European presence in a digital realm lorded over by American tech behemoths is less obvious. Oft-heard explanations include the continent’s risk-averse entrepreneurs and consumers, a lack of venture capital (VC), red tape and a fragmented home market. Benedict Evans, a former venture capitalist who now publishes a widely read newsletter, thinks the reason is far simpler: tech grew big in its birthplace, Silicon Valley. Until a few years ago, even aspirant American tech hubs, such as Austin, Miami and New York, did little better at spawning digital darlings than Berlin, London or Paris.SAP itself is proof that appearing in the right place at the right time is instrumental to making it in tech. The firm’s headquarters may have risen on an asparagus field a 15-minute drive south of Heidelberg, but the region combined many factors that contributed to the firm’s success: more than one well-organised factory whose business processes lent themselves to being turned into software; plenty of accountants and physicists who could hone SAP’s programs; no VC firms to badger it to ship half-baked products in search of a quick buck. Because the German market was relatively small, SAP also designed its code to work with many currencies—a feature that its American rivals, including Oracle, had to add laboriously after the fact.These days breeding tech stars is easier. Demand for digital services is growing in Europe, attracting money, experienced entrepreneurs and startup-friendly rules, such as a more relaxed attitude to employee stock options, says Annabelle Gawer, who runs the Centre of Digital Economy at the University of Surrey. The number of European tech firms worth more than $1bn, both listed and unlisted, has exploded in recent years. When Mosaic Ventures, a VC firm in London, surveyed such companies earlier this year, before a wobble in tech valuations, it counted about 180 new ones since 2010, collectively worth some $1trn (see chart).The DMA is meant to spur even more such breeding by creating a level playing field on which startups can compete against America’s tech titans. Its provisions will apply to “gatekeepers” which operate one or more “core platform services” and, according to the latest leaks, have a market capitalisation of more than €75bn and had annual revenue in Europe of more than €7.5bn in the last three financial years. The services in question include online search, social networks, video-sharing, operating systems, cloud-computing and online advertising: the bread and butter of America’s big tech, in other words.Specifically, the DMA may, among other things, compel Apple to let iPhone-users bypass its app store and “sideload” software from elsewhere; force Meta to make its WhatsApp and other messaging services work with rival ones; and require Google to show content from European publishers in its search engine. Without such rules, says Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s top trustbuster, “others will not get room to grow”.Perhaps. But the DMA may also make it harder for European firms to become really big. Some entrepreneurs may prefer to avoid the hassle of complying with its strictures. Investors’ enthusiasm for firms whose growth prospects could be crimped as a result may also be chilled. And enforcing the new rules against deep-pocketed American firms may be tough, says Thomas Vinje, a veteran antitrust lawyer at Clifford Chance, a law firm. To avoid having the DMA applied differently in the EU’s 27 member states, the European Commission will be in charge. But the 80 officials it has initially delegated to the task may struggle with their in-trays. Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority plans to employ three times as many people to perform a similar function for just one country.After 50 years SAP is at last seeing serious challenges to its dominance of European techdom. Adyen, a listed Dutch digital-payments provider, has a stockmarket value of more than $60bn. Klarna, a privately held Swedish one, is valued at $46bn. It would be an irony if the EU’s new rules made it harder for such upstarts to grow beyond a certain size—and an even bigger one if they allowed SAP, whose business software is not deemed a core platform service, to hold on to its crown. ■For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in economics, business and markets, sign up to Money Talks, our weekly newsletter.This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “New kids in the bloc” More

SHARP ATTIRE and a purposeful stride. The left-hand turn on the plane away from the cheap seats. Skipping the in-flight film to refine a presentation. Over the past two pandemic years these obvious giveaways of the globetrotting executive became a rare sight. According to the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), a trade body, worldwide spending on flights, hotels, car hire, restaurants and other similar expenses fell from $1.4trn in 2019 to $660bn in 2020 as a result of covid-19 lockdowns and tough restrictions on cross-border movement. Despite fresh disruptions, from coronavirus outbreaks and a tragic plane crash in China to Russia’s war in Ukraine, many places are relaxing travel restrictions. America and Europe are mostly open for business. On March 21st Hong Kong said it would admit vaccinated arrivals from nine countries, including America and Britain, from April 1st and relax onerous hotel-quarantine requirements. Business travellers are once again visible at airports, on aeroplanes, in hotels. The GBTA expects corporate travel to rebound sharply this year and return to its pre-pandemic peak by 2024 (see chart 1). That is a relief to full-service airlines, which counted on business travellers for 30% of revenues and a higher proportion of profits, and big global hotel chains, which earned two-thirds of their sales from executive guests. For corporate road-warriors the news is more mixed. Remaining covid-19 measures, readjusted travel budgets, changing work patterns, heightened risk awareness by companies and individuals: all are changing business travel in profound ways. Some of the changes will make travelling for work a more pleasant experience. Others will not. Throwing your laptop, clothes and miniature toiletries into a wheeliebag used to be a pretty universal corporate ritual. Henceforth it will increasingly depend on whom you work for, your role, where you are going and the purpose of your trip. Scott Davies, boss of the Institute of Travel Management, another industry body, explains that overall travel budgets used to be set annually, often against broad commercial objectives. As they are rebuilt after the pandemic lull, he expects many trips to be considered on a case-by-case basis. Many marginal jaunts won’t clear the hurdle (see chart 2), especially as companies get serious about reducing their carbon footprints, which swell with every air mile. Some trips will be quick to return. Indeed, even at the height of the pandemic essential business travel continued; managing and maintaining remote oil wells, large infrastructure or factories far from the head office is impossible over the internet. The share of travel spending by manufacturing, utilities or construction firms edged up from 48% in 2019 to 51% in 2020, according to the GBTA. Companies for which face-to-face client meetings are desirable to maintain relationships and vital to drum up new business, such as finance and professional-services firms, have been swift to get workers back on the road. Anecdotal evidence suggests that as soon as one company heard that a competitor was out pressing the flesh (or at least bumping fists) it followed suit. If you do pack that suitcase, your destination is likelier to be domestic. As with leisure travel, long-haul trips for work are recovering more slowly. A poll of over 450 companies by the GBTA in February found that two in three had restarted domestic trips but fewer than one in three had done so for cross-border journeys. Domestic trips in America, which accounted for nine in ten American corporate excursions in 2019, according to Bernstein, a broker, will increasingly go ahead. So will short-haul hops between European cities, which in 2018 made up two-thirds of EU business trips. Until the latest covid flare-ups the same looked true for flying in China, where business-travel spending fell by far less than the global average in 2020 and was recently forecast to grow by double the global average in 2021 (though Chinese borders remain impregnable to most outsiders). Your fellow passengers will disproportionately work for smaller companies. American Airlines reckons that travellers from smaller firms are back to 80% of their pre-covid numbers. The comparable figure for big firms is 40%. One reason is that small businesses mostly send people on those popular domestic routes. Another is that they may be more relaxed about their workers’ wellbeing. Vik Krishnan of McKinsey, a consultancy, says that the pandemic has led to travel managers at big companies having a heightened sense of their duty of care to employees. Fight for flightGetting a trip approved is, then, harder than before. A recent survey of 170 North American corporate-travel managers by Morgan Stanley, a bank, shows that budgets in 2022 are expected to be 31% below the level of 2019. In the short run approval may get harder still. On March 15th Ed Bastian, chief executive of Delta Air Lines, told the Financial Times that the war-induced spike in the oil price “will no question” raise ticket prices on both domestic and international routes. Other airline bosses doubtless have similar designs. Even if your supervisor signs off on your trip, you will find it harder to plan. The world’s airlines are running at around two-thirds of pre-covid capacity. That means less choice on times and fewer direct flights, notes Richard Clarke of Bernstein. The problem is not confined to flying. The scrapping of the 5:40am Eurostar train from London to Paris forces executives to arrive the night before in order to strike that morning deal over a croissant and café au lait.Once on the road, the experience isn’t what it used to be, either. With many executive lounges yet to reopen, the weary manager must seek refuge at a noisy restaurant—or worse, since plenty of eateries, too, remain shut, on a bench in the concourse within earshot of a disaffected infant. At many airports you will also still need to wear a mask. Although London’s Heathrow and a few other airports have lifted mask requirements, America’s federal mask mandate has been extended until at least April 18th. In the past year the Transportation Security Administration has fined nearly 1,000 unmasked travellers, so you ignore the rule at your peril and, almost certainly, personal expense.On board the plane you may find yourself in economy class more often, and not merely because of the rising air fares. Some climate-conscious airlines are already reconfiguring planes with fewer business-class seats (whose emissions per occupant are three times those of an economy seat). CEOs of large companies will be sad to hear that first-class seats, which are even dirtier, may disappear for good. In the air, expect to be served by cabin crew draped in personal protective equipment (especially in Asia, which remains more concerned than the West about hygiene). You, too, must keep your mask on, unless you are consuming food or drink (of the non-alcoholic variety on American Airlines, which will only restart in-flight booze sales in mid-April). At least hot meals are back; as recently as last month even first-class passengers on American and Delta had to do without such sustenance on domestic flights. Over the longer term, the news for the itinerant executive isn’t all bad. The introduction of touchless technology and online check-in for flights and hotels should speed up travel a little (at least once pandemic paperwork such as passenger-locator forms and vaccine certificates no longer needs verifying). With many planes sitting idly on the tarmac as a result of covid-related cancellations, some airlines used the opportunity to spruce them up. Australia’s Qantas has, for example, modernised its fleet of A380 superjumbos by installing comfier seats for premium passengers. Singapore Airlines has updated the cabins on some of its short-haul fleet. The few who get to hitch a ride on a corporate jet are also becoming a bit less select. Business-jet traffic has recovered much more swiftly than commercial aviation. According to WINGX, a consultancy, January was the busiest month ever, with the number of flights 15% higher than in January 2019. In a survey by Morgan Stanley, 11% of respondents said their firms would be more liberal with the use of business jets in 2022 than they were in 2021. Chronic jet-lag may become a thing of the past. With long-haul travel still limited, firms are reportedly opting to send executives on fewer trips that take more time. Unseemly displays of corporate machismo, such as flying half way across the world for one short meeting, may never return, no doubt pleasing everyone concerned. And many of those longer trips are combining work and play. Morgan Stanley sees evidence at American hotel chains that Thursdays and Sundays are becoming more popular with guests, suggesting that some workers may be moving trips towards the start of the week or its end, to blend work with pleasure. Such trips have become common enough to earn an ugly moniker, “bleisure”. Danny Finkel of TripActions, a business-travel-management firm, notes that this could appeal to those who approve their expenses, too: weekend flights are often much cheaper, offsetting the cost of extra nights at a hotel. Perhaps the best news for the bedraggled business traveller is that some trips simply won’t happen. Jarrod Castle of UBS, a bank, notes that 40% of business trips are to meet clients, another 40% involve internal meetings, and conferences, exhibitions and the like make up the rest. He reckons that perhaps half of the intra-company jaunts, especially for training or get-togethers between non-c-suite executives, are expendable. That means a fifth fewer trips overall. No grumbling there. ­■ More