2019 U.S.-Booked Air
Volume: $50 million
2019 T&E Expenditures: $378 million
Consolidated Global TMC: BCD
BTN estimates that investment bank and financial services
firm UBS's U.S.-booked air volume declined 31.5 percent in 2019 from $73
million a year prior. Operating income dropped from $30.2 billion in 2018 to
$28.9 billion in 2019, according to its annual report. The company's travel and
entertainment expenses also declined, by 11 percent, to $378 million. This
T&E decline follows the company's major focus on sophisticated travel business
intelligence and investment a global data warehouse and reporting partner. The
company also has consolidated to a single global booking tool as well as
consolidated its 56 markets to a global TMC. That further streamlines the data
coming into its reporting platform and allows UBS to provide T&E spend on a
close-to-real-time basis, which enables it to make cost-saving adjustments more
quickly than through previous reporting methods.
UBS offsets 100 percent of its carbon emissions from air
travel. Since 2012, it has reduced its business air travel 20 percent as of the
end of 2019. The company reported 68,601 full-time employees across 50
countries as of Dec. 31, 2019—about 2,000 more than in 2018—but those numbers
could be significantly impacted should the potential merger between UBS and
Credit Suisse come to fruition in 2021.