UBS Bans Business Class Flights on Short China Trips

(Bloomberg) — UBS Group AG has instructed bankers to stop flying business class on short trips to China, seeking to align its global travel policy and cut costs in Asia amid slow dealmaking, according to people familiar with the matter.

Bankers dedicated to China are no longer exempt from guidelines limiting business class to flights longer than five hours, a policy that has applied to other countries for years, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing a private matter. A representative for the Swiss bank declined to comment.

The change comes as dealmaking and capital-markets activity in China has slowed significantly amid escalating trade tensions with the US. Greater China has been a key growth driver and the largest profit contributor to the firm’s Asia business. Chinese overseas stock sales rose 74% last year, rebounding from a decade low in 2023, but remained just a fraction of the peak levels seen in 2020 and 2021, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Hong Kong is a key Asian hub for Wall Street and European financial firms, and bankers based there often fly to mainland China to help serve clients. 

China-focused bankers were partly granted the business-class privilege on short flights because fares are generally lower than in other markets for similar distances, one of the people said. The flight from Hong Kong to Shanghai, for example, is just under three hours and sometimes costs less than $500 one way for business class. 

UBS has cut more than 10,000 jobs and reduced costs since it bought Credit Suisse in 2023. The lender said in February it has achieved $7.5 billion of the $13 billion in total savings it’s seeking to extract from the acquisition. More recently, it’s been making reductions in Europe, including in Switzerland, France and Italy.

Iqbal Khan now leads the Swiss bank’s Asia operations from Hong Kong, where he’s also co-head of wealth management globally. UBS received regulatory approval in March to take full control of UBS Securities Co., finalizing the bank’s push for full ownership of the Chinese unit.

UBS reported a net income of $1.7 billion for the quarter through March, surpassing estimates, helped by a record performance by its markets unit. Separately, it is also in talks to sell its hedge fund unit O’Connor to Cantor Fitzgerald LP, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.

–With assistance from Sam Nagarajan.

(Updates with recent earnings in the last paragraph. An earlier version corrected a misspelled company name.)

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.