Most business travelers don't actually travel business class. And don't get to pick premium levels of service. And that would be even less the case if those premium levels were at a premium over today's premium levels.
The rate of business travelers who fly business class is not 100%, but it's very high for most airlines.
For US and European carriers, it's around 75%. Since the cost is 4 - 7x higher than commercial, most people aren't paying for this expensive personally. Not sure about other industries, but for consulting and tech, the standard is to allow a business upgrade on international flights and not domestic.
i can't produce numbers but, anecdotally, the idea that 75% of international business travelers get to fly business seems...unlikely based on the people I know and even assuming my own terms are especially shabby. Very frequent travelers, i.e. greater than my own 75K miles per year or so, do get upgrades from time to time but the I dispute the idea that the typical tech business traveler is usually flying business.
