Airline Industry head says terrorism won’t impact travel

Airline Industry head says terrorism won’t impact travel

Terrorist attacks on aircraft, airports and tourist destinations of the kind that have rocked Europe and parts of northern Africa in the past year won’t stem surging travel demand, according to International Air Transport Association Chief Executive Officer Tony Tyler.

The global airline industry association’s head said in an interview with Bloomberg, while such outrages have an impact on the industry and people’s perceptions, the effect is generally localized and temporary.

“The business impact of these events tends to be quite isolated and it’s often not as long-term as some people may think,” Tyler told Bloomberg Television.

“People don’t get frightened off by these thugs. Most people, I think, if they want to travel will travel.”

Tyler’s interview comes as investigators probing the loss of an EgyptAir jet in the eastern Mediterranean recently picked up pings likely to coming from black-box flight recorders that should reveal whether the plane was the latest target in an 18-month spate of terrorist attacks focused on Europe and North Africa.

Other incidents saw the main terminal at Brussels airport blown up, Paris hit by blasts and shootings, a Russian jet downed by a suspected Islamic State bomb and dozens of tourists killed in Tunisia and Turkey.

Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

    Latest comments
    1. Are you nuts! – Try selling MH – its hard – and no fault of MH by the way. Try selling Egypt or Turkey same problem. These are not short term losses, unless your concept of short term is a few years – and your cash flow can survive. Terrorist attacks are toxic, they have an immediate knee jerk reaction from clients. Localized and temporary – depends on your grasp of geography. A bomb in Brussels has ramifications as far reaching as Melbourne, if you sell groups history/educational ie: Flanders fields/Gallipoli etc you might find yourself with a fist full of cancelled tours. Dont kid yourself it has an impact just look at the cost of flights – yep anyone will travel when your just about giving the flights away !

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