Business-Class-plane

Do consultants at McKinsey BCG and Bain fly business class?

How luxurious is life as a consultant at McKinsey, BCG & Bain? Are you like George Clooney in Up in the Air? Here's the truth about business class flights in consulting.

Overview

Travel in consulting

In consulting projects, you work with clients across different geographies, and travel becomes inevitable. Many consultants live out of a suitcase!

Many consultants love to travel, some not so much, but it makes a huge difference if you’re stuck in a 5 hour flight in economy, or in business class!

But do you really get to travel business class in consulting? Like many other things in consulting, the answer is that it depends.

(Me in the Sydney-Mumbai Business Class in one of the best carriers – Singapore Air)

How to qualify for a business class ticket

I’ve worked as a management consultant at McKinsey, my sister worked at Bain, and through my startup, Mentoresult, I have helped over 2000 candidates across the world in securing consulting roles. Here is my analysis on the your chances of scoring a business class ticket in consulting:

  1. Seniority: Typically, once you are at a particular seniority (e.g. Associate partner, partner, senior partner), you can travel business class for all domestic and business class flights. So after 6–7 years at MBB, you would be taking all business class flights.
  2. Long-distance flights: Flights over ~5 hours for client work can be booked under business class – But this rule has several caveats:
    1. If your travel is for an internal event (like a training, or a internal conference), then you might not be allowed to book a business class ticket. Which means even a 12 hour flight from Mumbai to New York could be in economy!
    2. If your case has business constraints, or there is any exceptional circumstance, you might not be allow business class at all, even for very long flights. Typically in these cases, your staffer will inform you about this constraint before you join the case.

In reality

So business class flights are not a given, but certainly a possibility!

For example, I barely got any business class flights in my tenure at McKinsey.

On the other hand, in her 5 years at Bain, my sister has travelled in 25+ business class flights to 5 continents in Singapore Airlines, Qatar, Emirates, Etihad, Quantas, Lufthansa, Cathay, Jet, Air India and Dragon Air.

So it really varies!

Conclusion

That being said, there is usually so much air travel, that every consultant has platinum status in every airline, and they can use their miles and upgrade vouchers to have a decent in-air experience every time 🙂

If you’re looking at consulting as a career, and want to get started with your prep, then Mentoresult is the right place for you.

I’ve helped 2000+ candidates in their consulting journeys, through 1:1 resume mentorship, case prep support and interview practice.

Get started on your journey with me here.

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About the Author

Ruchi Aggarwal

Ruchi is the founder of Mentoresult. She was a management consultant at McKinsey & Co, has an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad and has scored a 99.99%ile in CAT and a 770 in GMAT.

Through Mentoresult, she mentored over 2000 candidates in reaching their career goals. Her success stories can be found across top jobs (McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Google, Amazon), top global MBA admissions (Harvard, Wharton, Booth, Columbia, Yale) and top Indian MBA (IIM A, IIM B, IIM C, ISB).  

She’s a prolific writer, with over 10 million views and 50,000+ followers on LinkedIn. You can find her on a 1:1 session here.

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