FCTG’s COVID-19 response

FLIGHT Centre will work with suppliers to “aggressively promote travel to destinations that are not significantly affected,” as part of its strategy to mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak.

MD Graham Turner outlined a range of initiatives to tackle a drop in demand as a result of coronavirus, saying the company was “already starting to see extremely attractive offers” such as return flights from Australia to the US for less than $700.

The update came alongside Flight Centre’s profit results for the six months to 31 Dec (TD breaking news), which at $38.8 million was impacted by a range of previously revealed one-off adjustments, including a $46.1 million write-down in the value of the company’s Topdeck and BackRoads Touring business.

Turner highlighted an 11.2% growth in TTV to a record $12.4 billion for the first half, saying “in a reasonably challenging trading climate globally, we were able to deliver record sales at accelerated growth rates”.

However, leisure growth had been largely driven by businesses which had “not yet achieved the scale required to materially impact group earnings”.

The FCTG co-founder said the company was fast-tracking its e-commerce, home-based and ready-made-package brands, and also aiming to improve the performance of the established Flight Centre network.

In Australia, leisure TTV increased 8.4% despite a “marked slowdown in outbound travel” to the slowest growth rate since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.

Turner said based on the experience of the SARS crisis, a significant rebound in the travel sector should be expected once COVID-19’s impact declines.