Abta chief executive Mark Tanzer told TTG’s Agenda 2022 seminar it was within travel’s power to trumpet a positive, reassuring messaging.
"If we can keep the messaging going through the summer into winter and next summer’s booking season that the [post-Covid] problems are being resolved, I’m confident it won’t have a damaging effect on confidence for next year’s bookings, which we obviously want to avoid," said Tanzer.
"Any disruption flows right the way back through the supply chain to the travel agents and the customer. The silver lining perhaps is that it makes people realise they want to travel with a travel professional’s help and guidance rather than doing this on their own if there’s going to be disruption.
"I’m very encouraged by what I’ve seen in terms of the progress that’s been made."
Tim Alderslade, chief executive of Airlines UK, said he couldn’t recall a summer where travel disruption didn’t make the national press. "I think as a sector we need to think about whether we’re feeding the beast," he said.
"I don’t blame the media, everyone loves a travel story. The reason they love one is because we’re in the peak summer months and people are looking to get away for the first time for two years.
"Behind the scenes, we need to go about our business, engage with government as we’re doing, get more people into the sector, go through the security processes, look at our capacity and make sure it’s matched to resource – that is all happening behind the scenes, we need to just let that play out."
’Pretty confident’
Karen Dee, chief executive of the Airport Operators Association, said that although media perceptions hadn’t helped, it was "incumbent" on the industry to "regenerate passenger confidence".
"[The coverage] indicated to people the problem was at all airports all the time – that just wasn’t the case," she said.
"Things are much better now, they’re looking up. It’s not all sorted, but we feel pretty confident the industry is geared up to ensure we get back to the kind of service we were used to and want to deliver to passengers."
