Bookings for London and onboard Qatar Airways could be at threat after recent incidents, according to the likes of Skroo and Jayson Westbury.
According to The Australian, travel agents have reported somewhat ‘sluggish’ bookings to London after the recent terror attacks, while Qatar’s national carrier has dropped in demand for Aussie travellers following the shocking blockade.
Per The Oz, Flight Centre claims bookings to the US are also down.
AFTA boss Jayson Westbury told The Oz that travellers were “considering” shifting stopover destinations from Qatar and re-evaluating the typical “three-night London stay” that appears on most European itineraries for Aussies.
The publication reports he also said London could see even less itineraries in coming months. Meanwhile Flight Centre’s boss Skroo Turner said most Aussies wouldn’t pull out of bookings for London given they’d already have paid for their summer holidays.
“Most people go to London for the summer and have already booked,” he told The Australian.
“We are not seeing any abnormal cancellations. It’s surprising but the one drop-off we have seen in bookings is to the US at the moment.”
Turner added that people might be “a little bit concerned” about what might come of the Qatar blockade, but added to The Oz that he was “quite confident the market will come back quite quickly”, depending on what Qatar’s Middle Eastern neighbours do next.
Looking back at last year’s terrorist attack at a Brussels airport – just days after an alleged suicide bomber was thwarted in Brussels – The Australian also spoke to airline commenter from the Centre for Aviation, Peter Harbison.
Harbison said the Belgian attack caused a “dramatic drop” in visitors coming through the airport.
‘‘That had a really big impact and since then it has fully recovered and traffic has been growing strongly,” he told The Oz.
According to Harbison, traffic to Brussels airport for the year to March 2016 was down 29 per cent, while April 2016’s traffic dropped 46 per cent.
It has only just started to recover, with arrivals up 11.8 per cent in May this year, per The Oz.
Speaking to the publication, Webjet’s boss John Guscic also said they had been no dip on bookings to either US or Britain.
