Speaking on the day of the release of the operator’s Q1 results, group chief executive Peter Fankhauser said the operator was using “all of our flexibility and all of our brains” to manage the situation in north Africa and the eastern Mediterranean.
He added even though destinations like Sharm el Sheikh and Tunisia are out of bounds, parts of the region remain popular and the operator will continue to serve them providing the UK government says it is safe to do so.
Fankhauser said: “We follow the advice of the FCO... We are not security experts. We rely 100% on the advice of the government in assessing the safety of a destinations.”
He added the fact that people are travelling to Hurghada shows there is still demand for Egypt while the operator saw 1.5 million customers visit in Turkey in 2016, despite ongoing security issues there.
“We see customers going back to Turkey in about the same numbers this year,” Fankhauser said.
He also said it was “too early” to comment on the ongoing inquest into the deaths of 30 Tui customers at a hotel near Sousse in Tunisia in 2015 where they were gunned down by a terrorist. At the time the FCO was not advising against all but essential travel to the area.
