Same-Day Biz Trips Are a Breeze

Daily Finance has a piece that sounds like a horrorshow but is really the wave of the future, and a pleasant one at that. Companies and clients are asking employees and contractors to forgo the hotel stay and jam the business trip into a single day.

What does this have to do with the car business? Well, I used to do same-day business trips all the time, when for several years I worked on magazines for General Motors. Several times each year, I’d catch the latest flight I could out of LAX, landing in Detroit at around 5 a.m. I’d make a beeline for Starbucks in the very pleasant Detroit airport, maybe read the papers, and at around 9 a.m., take a car to the Renaissance Center in Downtown Detroit, or sometimes out the offices of the ad agency I worked with, which was located in a fairly cool suburb and had a pool table next to the well-stocked kitchen.

The presentation meeting consumed about and hour, at which point we’d usually grab some lunch. Then I’d head back to airport, kill some more time with WiFi and occasionally a bit of shopping, perhaps have a drink at the bar, and get back to LAX just after rush hour and zip home in 20 minutes. I really didn’t miss anything at all, and even better, my wife wasn’t stranded with two kids for two days.

I initially thought this would be hard, but I came to enjoy and even prefer it. No hotel meant no bags. I’d wear my suit on the plane, shed the jacket for a sweater in-flight, sleep a little, then tidy up on landing, and add the necktie before leaving the airport. I carried my laptop, plus a small toiletries kit and a change of essential garments (you can guess) in case the plane got delayed and I had to stay overnight. But I could have theoretically carried nothing. Traveling ultra-light is a very liberating experience. Besides, one night in a hotel is disorienting. As DF points out:

“Despite the many miles logged in so few hours, [one traveler] says he'd rather pack it all in in a day. ‘You're always happier having a home-cooked meal in your own house than having a cheeseburger at a Holiday Inn,’ [he] says. With feedback like that, it probably won't be too hard for corporate travel departments to sell the single-day business trip to their employees.”

Exactly. It’s not hard at all if you give it some thought (and you won’t find anyone who has thought more about how much he loves than me). There’s a big however, however: single-day business trips ought to include more comfort on the plane. I always flew coach, which meant some sleep, but not particularly comfortable sleep. A bigger seat that was easier to stretch out in would have made all the difference. Premium food would not, nor would in-flight entertainment (earthbound chow is always better, and we have iPods). All people taking an overnight flight really want, especially if they have to perform the next day, is the option of slumber and good coffee on the other side (Starbucks Via ought to deliver a revolution on that front, absolving the airlines of even that—they ought to be able to boil water). You can see where this is headed: some kind of coach-plus class that’s maybe a bit pricer than regular coach but still cheaper than a hotel stay.

I loved my one-day biz trips, because in the end it felt less like I had left home and more like I had been magically teleported to some faraway Midwestern city where it snowed in February. And I could take it in and feel the chill knowing all the while that I’d be back in the L.A. sunshine in less than 12 hours.

Photo: Dylan Ashe/Wikimedia Commons