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WIRED
06-08-2025
- Business
- WIRED
The Business Traveler of Today Is Changing—and So Is Their Flight Map
Aug 6, 2025 10:50 AM A new era of work travel is taking entrepreneurs and creatives to Nigeria, Brazil, and beyond. 'Most of my work starts in Lagos, but it doesn't stay there for long,' says Anita Ashiru. She's one of the sole production designers working in Nigeria, where her team builds multi-scale sets and stage designs for the country's booming Afrobeats industry. Requests often come at a whim for work; Ashiru might be called abroad by the likes of frequent collaborator Davido, a Nigerian-American singer-songwriter who frequently shoots music videos in South Africa. Ashiru's job is one that largely didn't exist 10 years ago, she says, but the recent growth of the West African music industry has allowed her to live, work, and travel extensively throughout the region, frequently finding herself working in Johannesburg for weeks at a time. 'South Africa is a creative hub in different ways,' she tells Condé Nast Traveler. 'We don't really have that kind of system in Nigeria. It feels like stepping into a designer's dream.' Traveling between Nigeria and South Africa wasn't always this easy. Domestic travel in Africa has long been a challenge due to continent-wide infrastructure issues, including bureaucratic hurdles and the lack of connectivity between nations. But in recent years, the rise of cross-continental industries like e-commerce, fintech, and the arts has allowed for an influx of new flight paths catering to business travelers like Ashiru. Ashiru's carrier of choice, South Africa Airways, has placed a particular focus on boosting domestic service within Africa, increasing its flights to Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo in late 2024. The airline also bumped its Lagos to Johannesburg service to four times a week, beginning in November of last year. Long-haul air links to the continent have increased, too: Delta Air Lines recently resumed seasonal service from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to Lagos, and United Airlines inaugurated a brand-new route from Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) to Dakar, Senegal in May. This story is part of The New Era of Work Travel , a collaboration between the editors of Condé Nast Traveler and WIRED to help you navigate the perks and pitfalls of the modern business trip. Of course, the return of in-person meetings and conferences has spurred a rebound in air travel to more traditional business hubs as well. Take Singapore Airlines' direct flight from Newark to Singapore, configured only with business and premium economy seats, or United Airlines' five times weekly service from Chicago to Zurich.'That's not tourists looking for Swiss Chocolate,' says aviation expert Mike Arnot . 'That's business demand. Every airline is trying to fly these kinds of routes.' A Delta spokesperson tells Traveler the airline is focusing on Rio de Janeiro as a 'strategic corporate and business market' due to its recent growth amongst business travelers for 2025. Delta expanded its existing partnership with the LATAM group this year in order to increase connectivity between Brazil and the US, including with the launch of a new Boston to São Paulo route in January. This runs alongside regular flights to Rio De Janeiro, which connect to dozens of international airports via Delta's Atlanta hub. Writer, filmmaker, and label head Jesse Bernard frequently flies from London to Rio with the LATAM network when producing documentaries and organizing nightlife events. He's the head of COMO VOCÊ, a transatlantic record label that works across London and Brazil's cultural capital. 'I've noticed when you're flying to countries within the African diaspora, there's a sense that most of the people on the flight aren't there for a holiday,' he says. 'There is a sense of familiarity; it's people traveling to London for work or traveling back for the same. They aren't necessarily tourists.' Bernard spends weeks to months at a time in the UK or Brazil, where regional genres like grime and baile funk are taking off. 'Places like Brazil are leading nightlife, club culture, and underground music at the moment,' he tells Traveler. 'There is a real DIY culture and community." Across the pond, North American passengers are flocking to South Korea as a top trending destination. One of the most popular airline routes in the US this summer was Los Angeles to Seoul, according to July 2025 data from OAG, an aviation analytics company. For LA-based content creator Roger Who, traveling to Seoul has become essential for his work in the skincare and beauty space. Recent years have seen the K-beauty market explode in South Korea, in part thanks to treatments and services popularized by viral TikTok and Instagram videos. The boom has transformed business and tourism in the country: Over 1 million foreign patients traveled to South Korea from 2023 to 2024 for treatments including skincare procedures, medical services, and color analysis, per a Business of Fashion report. Various airlines serving the Asia market are investing more in their US-South Korea connectivity. Air Premia—Who's go-to airline—recently increased its LAX flight schedule from seven to 10 flights per week in March 2025. Meanwhile, Korean Air has increased passenger capacity on the route with larger Airbus A380 aircraft and plans to bump its weekly service to LAX from four to five flights starting in August 2025. Over the last five years, the two cities have become the global capitals of the digital creator economy. 'Both LA and Seoul have a really strong culture around appearance and self-care,' Who says. 'In LA, we have this intersection of entertainment, wellness, and beauty, which creates an audience that looks for influencer-led discovery and beauty education. Seoul has this similar energy.' While Who's trips to Seoul are primarily work focused, he makes sure to carve out time for leisure as well. As with many modern careers in the digital age, the line between work and play is not always obvious: 'Even when I'm going out with friends to do things completely unrelated to beauty, I often find myself wanting to film those moments because they're just so cool or unique,' Who says. As more young professionals combine business and leisure trips into single-ticket itineraries—a trend coined as bleisure—they've permanently shifted where and when business travel can take place. Previously, 'a passenger flying alone on Monday morning without a checked bag was a business traveler, and two or more people on an itinerary involving a weekend was a leisure trip,' says Gary Leff, an aviation expert and Condé Nast Traveler travel specialist. 'But now that weekend trip with a spouse or partner might start earlier in the week, include business, and extend into the weekend. The traditional Monday to Thursday business travel week for the consultant class is over."
Condé Nast Traveler
06-08-2025
- Business
- Condé Nast Traveler
The Business Traveler of Today is Changing—and So Is Their Flight Map
This story is part of The New Era of Work Travel, a collaboration between the editors of Condé Nast Traveler and WIRED to help you navigate the perks and pitfalls of the modern business trip. 'Most of my work starts in Lagos, but it doesn't stay there for long,' says Anita Ashiru. She's one of the sole production designers working in Nigeria, where her team builds multi-scale sets and stage designs for the country's booming Afrobeats industry. Requests often come at a whim for work; Ashiru might be called abroad by the likes of frequent collaborator Davido, a Nigerian-American singer-songwriter who frequently shoots music videos in South Africa. Ashiru's job is one that largely didn't exist 10 years ago, she says, but the recent growth of the West African music industry has allowed her to live, work, and travel extensively throughout the region, frequently finding herself working in Johannesburg for weeks at a time. 'South Africa is a creative hub in different ways,' she tells Condé Nast Traveler. 'We don't really have that kind of system in Nigeria. It feels like stepping into a designer's dream.' Traveling between Nigeria and South Africa wasn't always this easy. Domestic travel in Africa has long been a challenge due to continent-wide infrastructure issues, including bureaucratic hurdles and the lack of connectivity between nations. But in recent years, the rise of cross-continental industries like e-commerce, fintech, and the arts has allowed for an influx of new flight paths catering to business travelers like Ashiru. Ashiru's carrier of choice, South Africa Airways, has placed a particular focus on boosting domestic service within Africa, increasing its flights to Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo in late 2024. The airline also bumped its Lagos to Johannesburg service to four times a week, beginning in November of last year. Long-haul air links to the continent have increased, too: Delta Air Lines recently resumed seasonal service from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to Lagos, and United Airlines inaugurated a brand-new route from Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) to Dakar, Senegal in May. Of course, the return of in-person meetings and conferences has spurred a rebound in air travel to more traditional business hubs as well. Take Singapore Airlines' direct flight from Newark to Singapore, configured only with business and premium economy seats, or United Airlines' five times weekly service from Chicago to Zurich.'That's not tourists looking for Swiss Chocolate,' says aviation expert Mike Arnot. 'That's business demand. Every airline is trying to fly these kinds of routes.' A Delta spokesperson tells Traveler the airline is focusing on Rio de Janeiro as a 'strategic corporate and business market' due to its recent growth amongst business travelers for 2025. Delta expanded its existing partnership with the LATAM group this year in order to increase connectivity between Brazil and the US, including with the launch of a new Boston to São Paulo route in January. This runs alongside regular flights to Rio De Janeiro, which connect to dozens of international airports via Delta's Atlanta hub. Alex Green Writer, filmmaker, and label head Jesse Bernard frequently flies from London to Rio with the LATAM network when producing documentaries and organizing nightlife events. He's the head of COMO VOCÊ, a transatlantic record label that works across London and Brazil's cultural capital.
Associated Press
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Movie Review: Wes Anderson's ‘Phoenician Scheme' is as Wes Anderson as a Wes Anderson film can be
'They say you murdered my mother,' the young would-be nun tells the shady tycoon. 'I feel the need to address this.' There's something about the deadpan delivery and the clear-eyed manner that makes you sit up and take notice of Liesl, and even more of Mia Threapleton, who plays her in 'The Phoenician Scheme.' (And there's another thing, too obvious to ignore: Boy, does she ever resemble her mom, Kate Winslet.) A vivid presence despite her dry-as-dust tone, Threapleton makes a splendid Andersonian debut here as half the father-daughter duo, along with Benicio Del Toro, that drives the director's latest creation. Their emerging relationship is what stands out amid the familiar Andersonian details: the picture-book aesthetic. The meticulous production design (down to those fascinating closing credits). The chapter cards. The 'who's who' of Hollywood cameos. And most of all the intricate — nay, elaborate; nay, labyrinthine — plot. Indeed, Anderson seems to be leaning into some of these characteristics here, giving the impression of becoming even more, well, Wes Anderson than before. He will likely delight his most ardent fans but perhaps lose a few others with the plot, which becomes a bit exhausting to follow as we reach the midpoint of this tale. But what is the Phoenician scheme, anyway? It's a sweeping, ambitious, somewhat corrupt dream of one Anatole 'Zsa-zsa' Korda (Del Toro), one of the richest industrialists in Europe, to exploit a vast region of the world. We begin in 1950, with yet another assassination attempt on Korda's life — his sixth plane crash, to be exact, which occurs as he sits smoking a cigar and reading about botany. Suddenly, in a hugely entertaining pre-credits sequence, Korda's in the cockpit, ejecting his useless pilot and directing his own rescue, asking ground control whether he should crash into a corn or soybean field. The media mourns his passing — and then he turns up, one eye mangled, biting into a husk of corn. As usual, reports of his death have been … you know. Recovering at his estate, with some truly fabulous, tiled bathroom floors, Korda summons Liesl from the convent where he sent her at age 5. He wants her to be his sole heir — and avenger, should his plentiful enemies get him. His plans are contained in a series of shoeboxes. But Liesl isn't very interested in the Korda Land and Sea Phoenician Infrastructure Scheme. What she wants to know is who killed her mother. She also mentions they haven't seen each other in six years. ('I apologize,' he says.) And she wonders why none of his nine sons, young boys he keeps in a dormitory, will be heirs. But Korda wants her. They agree to a trial period. We do get the creeping feeling Liesl will never make it back to the convent — maybe it's the red lipstick, or the affinity she's developing for jewels? But we digress. We should have mentioned by now the tutor and insect expert, Bjørn. In his first Anderson film but likely not the last, Michael Cera inhabits this character with just the right mix of commitment and self-awareness. 'I could eat a horse,' he muses in a silly quasi-Norwegian accent before lunch, 'and easily a pigeon!' Now it's on the road they go, to secure investments in the scheme. We won't get into the financial niceties — we writers have word-length limits, and you readers have patience limits. But the voyage involves — obviously! — a long line of characters only Anderson could bring to life. Among them: the Sacramento consortium, aka Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston, two American guys who hinge their financial commitment on the outcome of a game of HORSE. Next it's to Marseille Bob (Mathieu Amalric), and then to Marty (Jeffrey Wright), leader of the Newark Syndicate (we're not talking Jersey here, but Upper Eastern Independent Phoenicia), who offers a blood transfusion to Korda because, oh yes, he was shot by terrorists at the previous meeting. (Don't worry, the guy's indestructible.) Then there's Cousin Hilda (Scarlett Johansson, continuing the cameo parade), whom Korda seeks to marry to get her participation in the investment. And then back on the plane, the group is strafed by a fighter jet. Soon, it'll be revealed that one of them is a mole. We won't tell you who, although it's hard to tell if anything is really a spoiler here — like the part when Benedict Cumberbatch appears with a very fake beard as Uncle Nubar, who may be someone's father or may have killed someone, and engages in a slapstick fight with Korda, complete with vase-smashing. We also shouldn't tell you what happens with the big ol' scheme — it was all about the journey, anyway. And about Korda and Liesl, who by the end have discovered things about each other but, even more, about themselves. As for Liesl, at the end, she's clad stylishly in black and white — but definitely not in a habit. As someone famously said about Maria in 'The Sound of Music,' 'somewhere out there is a lady who I think will never be a nun.' 'The Phoenician Scheme,' a Focus Features release, has been rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association 'for violent content, bloody images, some sexual material, nude images, and smoking throughout.' Running time: 101 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
