TA-ANALYSIS: Qantas summoned to appear at Bali hearing

Qantas have been summoned to explain why a senior representative approached ASIO, Australia Security Intelligence Organisaton, regarding government' travel warnings to Indonesia, in particular Bali,
just prior to the Bali bombings. At the time of the Bali terrorist attacks, Bali was singled out as an area where tourist services were operating normally.

The ABC's investigative unit has been told the committee is concerned the airline may have put pressure on the Federal Government to weaken travel warnings for Australians travelling to Bali before the 2002 bombings.

The Qantas head of group security Geoff Askew has released a statement saying the company looks forward to giving evidence to the committee.

He says Qantas did not in any way, shape or form seek to influence the threat assessment for Indonesia and describes the suggestion as preposterous.

IMO, they thought travel warnings
were bad for business.

Sources
The Australian

ABC.net.au


[Edited on 4-5-2004 by Zion Mainframe]

I agree that the travel warnings were bad bad business, particularly because of the orchestrated manipulation that is taking place with airline travel. If you CAN muster the resolve to put up with the increased security vs the same or a degraded sense of overall customer service, chances are you are not willing to pay the heightened fees these companies are charging.

In addition to this, there are a lot more people who are scared of air travel than there were before the turn of the 21st century. This is quite sad, IMHO, as plane travel is stil, statistcally, one of the safest modes of transportation.

travel warnings or not, let's face it. the majority of these warnings are hocus-pocus. legitimate warnings, as in actual threats that are about to materializde, are rarely (if at all) given public attention. A REALLY good example or two of this is 911, Bali, and the Madrid bombings.