(Voices, Travel Weekly, Tornos)

THOMAS Cook has re-routed 1.2 million airline seats away from Turkey, Tunisia and Egypt.

According to its Chief Executive, Peter Fankhauser, that Turkey makes up 18% of the business’ guest numbers.

Travel Weekly quoted Mr Fankhauser as saying that Thomas Cook has rerouted 1.2 million airline seats away from Turkey, Tunisia and Egypt.

Travel Weekly reported that 800,000 of these were from Turkey, the equivalent of moving 29% of capacity from the destination.

He said: “In the aftermath of the terrible incident in Istanbul we saw a sharp drop in demand to Turkey. We planned a 29% shift in capacity; that seems to be the right level of capacity but we are remaining flexibility.

“Turkey is a good value for money destination and we see from Google searches that people still want to go to Turkey.

“We are seeing the demand coming back to Turkey, like what we saw after other terrible events (such as Paris). It’s a recovering market.”

Destinations such as Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria and long-haul countries including the US and Cuba were faring well as a result.

The announcement comes just 2 days after Thomas Cook’s rival TUI announced that it had experienced a 40 percent drop in bookings to Turkey.

Holiday bookings for this summer are being put on hold by consumers in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris and Istanbul, Thomas Cook disclosed today.

Security concerns have knocked consumer confidence, causing some people to postpone holiday plans, leading to an overall later booking pattern and capacity being trimmed, Travel Weekly reported.

Fankhauser said the company had anticipated a shift away from Turkey as early as October, with bookings not as strong as they usually would be at that time of year for the destination.

He added: “We are seeing the demand coming back to Turkey, like what we saw after other terrible events (such as Paris). It’s a recovering market.”

Fankhauser insisted he didn’t see the shift to western Mediterranean destinations as permanent, saying he sees it occurring “for the time being”.

He said: “Although bookings have been disrupted by geopolitical concerns which have affected consumer confidence, in recent weeks we have seen clear signs of recovery.

“Having anticipated a higher risk of disruption this year, we have worked proactively to rebalance our programme to match changes in customer demand, adjusting our in-house flying capacity and route networks, and securing additional hotel rooms particularly in the western Mediterranean where demand is strongest.

“This leaves us well positioned to manage demand and accommodate customer preferences for the remainder of the booking period.”

Sales for summer 2016 are 2% behind last year at 29% sold, with UK average prices for package holidays up by 4%, reflecting a 7% rise in online sales.

The group’s overall bookings for the summer are down by 5%, partly due to charter capacity cuts of 3%.