Airlines concerned Zika virus impacting travel - IATA

A number of airlines have raised concerns that the rapidly spreading Zika virus maybe discouraging travel in the Americas, IATA's DG Tony Tyler said. His comment marks one of the industry's first acknowledgments that the mosquito-borne virus could hit revenue. "A number of members have expressed concern that they may already be seeing some effect on travel, particularly in the Americas," he said. "When we publish numbers, particularly I think the regional numbers for January, perhaps there will be the first indication of that." Tyler could not comment on what kind of impact the airlines were seeing, whether destination switches or lower bookings overall. Airlines so far have reported no material change to flight bookings because of the virus, and they note that identifying a shift would be difficult. <br/>