A sharp drop in flight bookings to Istanbul followed the recent terrorist attack on June 28 at Ataturk Airport, according to ForwardKeys, which monitors future travel patterns by analysing 14 million reservation transactions each day.

Istanbul bookings - already down following earlier attacks in January and March – dropped 69 per cent in the week after the bombing, the latest ForwardKeys analysis shows. Transfers through Istanbul, one of Europe’s most important international hub airports, were also hit, down 36 per cent.

Olivier Jager, ForwardKeys co-founder and CEO, said: “Before this latest incident, our analysis showed terrorism was having an impact on visitors to Istanbul, although transit numbers had continued to rise. But with this attack, transit numbers have also been affected.” Since the beginning of January, Istanbul has suffered from three terror attacks and travel has been 29 per cent down over the six month period, compared with the previous year; by comparison, transit traffic through Istanbul’s airport has been 9 per cent up.

The importance of Istanbul as a transit hub, linking Europe with the Middle East and Asia, has been growing impressively since 2014, according to the ForwardKeys data, with double digit rises every quarter except Q1 2015; and in the first half of this year, Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport had a higher proportion of transit travellers than either Charles de Gaulle or Heathrow.

Looking ahead to the second half of 2016, the picture is not encouraging. Forward bookings for international arrivals in Istanbul, as of July 2, are 36 per cent behind the level they were at this time last year.

Forward bookings for the coming six months by transit travellers from Europe and Asia Pacific are also behind last year by 1 per cent and 6 per cent respectively but from the Americas and the Middle East are ahead by 13 per cent and 16 per cent respectively.  Overall, transit bookings for the coming six months are still 2 per cent ahead of last year.

Jager said: “In my view, the airport minimised the commercial impact of the attack by reopening so promptly and is to be congratulated for such speedy action.” - TradeArabia News Service