More UK business travellers are using low cost carriers, according to the Barclaycard Business Travel Survey 2008.
BA remained for the seventh year running the favourite airline for business travellers with 28% using it regularly.
But easyJet and Ryanair both saw increases in their number of business travellers.
15% now regard easyJet as their preferred airline, compared with 7% last year while 8% preferred Ryanair compared with 3% in 2007.
Their rise to second and third favourite airline in Britain pushed Virgin Atlantic down from second to eighth place.
The survey which questioned more than 3,000 business traveller sin the country, also noted in its 2006-7 survey, BA was the choice of 48% of British business travellers.
In the survey, 26% said they were now travelling more by rail although only 15% attributed this to “green” factors.
The majority (42%) said it was due to new business prospects in the UK.
But only a minority of 19% said rail services in the country has improved with 54% saying they were the same as last year.
Amex buys stake in Concur
American Express has bought a 13% stake in IT company Concur Technologies.
The two companies also announced they had signed a marketing partnership.
Amex said it had paid $251m cash for 6.4m voting shares in the company which specialises in T&E expense management services.
The deal also allows Amex to buy a further 1.28m shares at any time during the next two years for $39.27 per share.
Edward Gilligan, Amex's vp and group ceo of business-to-business, will also join the Concur board.
Under the marketing agreement, Concur will exclusively promote Amex's corporate cards to its 7,000 clients while Amex will promote Concur Expense to its clients.