When this was written — On 26 June 2026. The figures are as at that date or earlier and have not been updated since.
Flight Centre co-founder Graham Turner is tired of waiting for short sellers to buy back their positions. Rather than letting the 11.53% short interest dictate the travel group's valuation, Turner decided to make a statement of his own.
On May 28, 2026, Turner executed a single buy order worth A$996,340.25 1, bringing insider buying over the last quarter to nearly A$1 million. This insider support arrived three months after the company posted its half-year results, which featured an underlying EBITDA of $213 million R2 and a 6% revenue increase to $1.41 billion R3. While the board reaffirmed its full-year underlying profit targets of $315 million to $350 million R2, the market remained hesitant, leaving a gap that Turner apparently felt compelled to fill with his own capital.
The short sellers have built a semi-permanent home in FLT. Short interest sits at 11.53%, comfortably above the travel peer average of 7.04%. While the stock has staged a 16.4% rebound over the last month, the longer-term chart shows a 23.3% decline over six months. The 30-day price-to-short correlation of -0.207 suggests a classic tug-of-war; as the price ticked up, shorts gave up very little ground, keeping the 90-day average elevated at 11.20%. It is a high-conviction bet on both sides of the ledger.
Turner has put nearly A$1 million of his own money on the line to defend the valuation. Now, the short sellers must decide if they want to fight the founder.