Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce believes the recent terrorist attacks in Paris will not dissuade passengers from travelling to France.
The series of bombings and shootings at multiple locations across the French capital on Friday (European time) have killed 129 people and wounded hundreds more.
Qantas has allowed passengers holding tickets to travel to Paris to reroute or rebook their travel, change destinations or cancel their flights and receive a travel credit without paying any fees.
Joyce told reporters in Sydney on Monday at the unveiling of the airline’s second retro jet the latest advice he had was that six passengers had taken up one of those options.
“Anybody that needs to get back home, we are facilitating that and organising any changes to travel without any fees obviously,” Joyce said.
The latest advice from the Australian government’s Smart Traveller website said there was a “high level of risk” in Paris and suggested people “reconsider their need to travel”.
Joyce said he expected travel to France would remain resilient, citing the example of how the Bali market rebounded after the terrorist attacks in that city.
“These things have happened in the past at other locations around the world and what we’ve seen is that Australians as travellers are very much not incentivised to change their travel patterns in the medium to long term as a consequence of these things,” Joyce said.
“I think it does indicate that terrorism wins in the end if people do that.
“We’ve seen in Bali where it recovered quite significantly after the Bali bombings and I have no doubt that people believe Paris is a phenomenal destination.
“In the medium to long term people will continue their travel arrangements to Paris.“
