Low-Cost Carriers Snubbed By EU

Fringe benefits continue to be one of the corporate world's last bastions of egocentric one upsmanship.
While the US essential crashed and burned during the GFC and highflying executives have found themselves a back of the bus as it were, Europe remains different.
A high profile dispute between the Chief Executive of budget carrier Ryanair and the European Commission has resulted in a formal complaint to the governing body.
Ryanair's Michael O'Leary has said that the EU has impeded travel arrangers from booking flights on low-cost airlines.
He has cited the recent experience where he was an invited speaker and was forced to take a higher priced carrier, which necessitated more expense with a car and driver added on.
The EU has responded that low-cost carriers do not address business traveler's needs due to the inability to address last minute changes.
Greece remains a rallying call for the EU and even that country allows its own official to travel business class.
Here in Asia, as the low-cost carriers continue to rack up market share and legacy airline carriers equally incur growing losses it's interesting to see how the corporate culture remains so disconnected to a changing travel horizon.