Australian companies may be paying dearly for peace of mind in the sky and receiving rather less peace than the invoice suggests.
The new FY26 Australian Business Travel Digest comes from Travel Analytics and FACTS. It examines 227 corporate travel programs and finds a striking mismatch between the price of flexible airfares and the risk they cover.
Across those programs, businesses bought 39,493 flexible domestic tickets. They paid $5.7 million in fare premiums. The estimated cost of changing restricted tickets was just $1 million. On the Digest’s benchmark model, that leaves a $4.7 million gap.
All sums in the report are Australian dollars.
Flexibility, it seems, has been treated less like insurance and more like a reflex a very expensive twitch.
Airfares rise, then retreat
Like-for-like domestic air costs per kilometre climbed sharply during FY2025–26. They peaked 39 per cent above the opening quarter in December. They then eased, finishing the financial year 28 per cent higher.
That retreat matters. The Digest says travel budgets built around the December peak may now carry about 8 per cent more headroom than needed. For finance chiefs preparing FY27 budgets, yesterday’s high-water mark is a poor place to drop anchor.
Travel Analytics founder Simon Crunden said: “The data challenges some long-held assumptions about business travel.”
The clearest assumption under pressure is that flexibility should be bought broadly. Flexible fares made up 23 per cent of domestic bookings. Yet only 10 to 16 per cent of restricted tickets were changed. In the fourth quarter, the average flexible-fare premium was $146. The expected cost of changing a restricted ticket was $39.
This does not mean every flexible fare is wasteful. Senior executives and project teams may face uncertain schedules. They may need that protection. It does mean the old blanket rule deserves a polite but firm trip to the departure gate.
Late booking penalty narrows
The Digest also challenges the familiar order to book three weeks ahead at all costs. In the first quarter, a domestic economy booking made within 48 hours carried a 200 per cent penalty. By the fourth quarter, that premium had narrowed to 63 per cent.
Booking early still matters, especially inside the final week. Yet fares booked 14 to 20 days ahead were within 6 per cent of those booked at least 21 days ahead. The sharper target is genuinely late booking. It is not scolding a traveller who booked on day 18 instead of day 21.
Hotel leakage hides buying power
Air is only part of the story. Just half of eligible overnight domestic trips produced a hotel booking through the travel management company, or TMC. Brisbane captured only 43 per cent, while Adelaide reached 68 per cent.
When hotel bookings escape the managed program, buyers lose sight of the spend. Duty-of-care data and negotiating power go with it. The room is still occupied; it has simply performed a Houdini act on the corporate ledger.
FACTS chief executive Derek Sadubin said: “The question isn’t simply whether travel costs are rising.” His larger point is clear. Buyers must find needless spend and use benchmarks to challenge policy, budgets and behaviour.
Focus on the frequent few
Perhaps the Digest’s most useful lesson is that corporate travel is anything but evenly spread. Just 8.9 per cent of travellers generated 47 per cent of trips. They also drove 40 per cent of both air spend and carbon emissions. That group numbered only 4,418 people in the benchmark.
That gives buyers a practical starting point. Direct talks with frequent travellers may change results faster than another all-staff policy memo. We all know where that is going: the inbox basement.
Cabin policy also calls for a regional lens. Premium travel ranged from 16 per cent of trans-Tasman sectors to 64 per cent on Middle East routes. Carbon adds another reason for care. The average long-haul business-class sector produced 1,262 kilograms of carbon dioxide. Economy produced 750 kilograms.
The message is not to ground business travel or wrap every trip in red tape. It is to manage what matters. Re-base budgets. Reserve flexible fares for real uncertainty. Capture more hotel spend. Target the latest bookings. Above all, work with the small group driving the largest share of cost and carbon.
The spreadsheet has spoken. Happily, it has also suggested where to find the savings.
Read the full Australian Business Travel Digest.
By: Sandra Jones – © 2026.
Read Time: 4 minutes.
Author Bio:
Sandra has spent a working lifetime quietly rescuing journeys, one itinerary, one anxious caller, one impossible connection at a time. Years in Australia’s finest travel agencies taught her the art of calm, how to find a flight in a fog of cancellations, how to soothe a traveller when luggage wanders, how to turn nine frantic days in Europe into something resembling sense. Qualified, seasoned, endlessly patient, she learned that good travel advice is part logistics, part listening.
But the storyteller in her was always waiting its turn. Writing offered a new map, a way to turn experience into reflection, detail into delight. At Global Travel Media, Sandra now writes the truths only insiders know: the mishaps, the laughter, the grace found between gates and goodbyes. She reminds us that travel, for all its fuss, is still one of life’s better ideas.
