‘Travel is the prominent part of your life’: Road warriors adjust to being grounded
When Jessica O'Callaghan unpacked her suitcase on March 12, she didn't realize that was the last time she'd do so for the foreseeable future.
"Normally that suitcase is packed, unpacked and repacked," said O'Callaghan, regional managing director of North America for lifestyle communications agency DeVries Global. "It's my buddy. I keep looking at it with dust on it and think, 'I wonder when I'm going to use my suitcase again?'"
Until recently, O'Callaghan was on an airplane two or three times a week. She's one of the media and marketing industry's many "road warriors," a.k.a. employees who spend the majority of their time on the road going to client meetings, conferences and the like for their jobs. Rather than accumulating airline and hotel miles, breezing through Clear and logging time in the Centurian lounge, these high fliers are grounded until further notice — and possibly for longer as this crisis stretches on and a deep economic recession give finance mandarins, always dubious of the true need for much of business travel, more ammunition to clip the wings of the road warrior set.
Sure, many frequent travelers profess outwardly to be relieved of the strain of traveling. Let's face it, the glamor of business travel was always overrated. Still, like an amputee feeling pain in a phantom limb, road warriors still hear the siren call of wanderlust. And no, they don't feel more productive stuck at home.
