Jun. 10—WHILE Southwest Airlines was celebrating its 25th year serving Manchester-Boston Regional Airport on Wednesday, Steve Williams was standing in line at Gate 12 to board a 9:15 a.m. flight to Baltimore.

The Merrimack resident, who works for an advertising agency, was going to catch a connecting flight to Atlanta.

"It's definitely the easiest service for me out of Manchester," said Williams, who has been using Southwest for about 15 years.

Before the pandemic, Williams traveled two to three times a month for business.

Now it's once a month.

While there may be pent-up demand for more flights out of Manchester, most of them are for leisure trips. Business travel nationwide has not returned to pre-pandemic levels and is not expected to do so anytime soon.

"The COVID-19 pandemic drastically altered the business travel landscape, forcing companies to reevaluate their travel policies and adjust to a new reality of virtual meetings and reduced face-to-face interactions," Morning Consult wrote in a February report about business travel.

While business travel represents a smaller share of the market by volume, business travelers tend to spend more than other travelers, the report said.

"But all indicators suggest that business travel will never again be like it was before COVID-19," the report said. "Fewer travelers representing different demographics are sticking to tightly managed budgets, prioritizing the most important travel opportunities and leaving the rest for Zoom."

Business travel at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport is coming back, but it looks a lot different now, Airport Director Ted Kitchens says.

"Thursdays are now our peak days. That would never happen before," Kitchens said during an interview at the Southwest event. "It's people heading out for a longer weekend.

"Maybe they're going to fly on a trip and they're going to work remotely for Friday, and enjoy a Saturday/Sunday on the beach or in the theme parks or wherever they may be going," he said. "And then they're coming back on a Monday or a Tuesday."

The travelers may be dressed more for a day at the beach or Disney World than a power lunch at a pricey restaurant.

"We call that 'bleisure' travel, which is a combination of business and leisure," Kitchens said. "They're harder to pick out because they're usually going in jeans and flip-flops, versus suits and branded shirts."

25 and counting

The Baltimore-bound passengers who helped celebrate Southwest's 25th year at MHT might have recognized one of the Southwest employees posing for photos at Gate 12.

Martha Clark wasn't one of the officials who grabbed the microphone to address them, but she has the longest tenure with Southwest at the airport — serving customers for 25 years.

Clark was working for Southwest in Houston when she learned the airline was coming to New Hampshire.

"My husband and I had lived in Montana. We were looking for a place that was picturesque and had four seasons," Clark said Wednesday. "A friend of mine came back from working in Providence, and he said, 'Hey, I've heard Manchester was going to open.'"

Clark was with her husband, Jerry, who is now a flight attendant but had been working with the ground crew at the time.

"We were walking back across the parking lot, and I said, 'What do you think about going to Manchester?' And there you go. So we put in for Manchester."

Mike Cote is senior editor for news and business. Contact him at mcote@unionleader.com or (603) 206-7724.

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