Etihad Airways records US$1.7bn loss for 2020 | News

Etihad Airways has described an functioning reduction of US$1.7 billion for economic 2020, accelerating the losses of US $.8 billion observed past calendar year.

The Abu Dhabi flag-provider blamed the Covid-19 for its deteriorating fortunes.

The airline noticed a 76 for every cent tumble in passengers carried in the course of the yr, down to 4.2 million from 17.5 million in 2019.

This was a consequence of reduced demand from customers and diminished flight capability prompted by the unparalleled world-wide downturn in professional aviation, the provider stated.

Overall passenger potential was lessened by 64 per cent in 2020 to 37.5 billion available seat kilometres, down from 104 billion in 2019, with the seat load issue declining to 53 for each cent, 25.8 proportion points decrease when compared to 2019.

The airline recorded US $1.2 billion passenger revenues in 2020, down by 74 for each cent from US $4.8 billion in 2019, because of to fewer scheduled solutions and dramatically much less persons travelling.

A contributing issue to this was the overall suspension of passenger products and services into and out of the UAE from end of March till early June previous year to restrict the spread of Covid-19, in line with a UAE government mandate.

A lot more than 80 for each cent of overall passengers carried in 2020 were flown throughout the initial three months of the year, demonstrating the precipitous drop in demand from customers as the global crisis deepened in excess of the system of the 12 months.

Tony Douglas, team main government officer, Etihad, stated: “Covid shook the pretty foundation of the aviation market, but thanks to our focused people and the support of our shareholder, Etihad stood firm and is all set to participate in a vital job as the entire world returns to traveling.

“While no person could have predicted how 2020 would unfold, our target on optimising main business fundamentals around the previous 3 years put Etihad in good stead to respond decisively to the world disaster.

“We have taken bold motion to safeguard our people and our visitors, build an business-major health and fitness and cleanliness programme, and restructure our business to far better place us for recovery.”