Emirates Group has reported a $6 billion loss in the Financial Year to 31st March 2021, citing the adverse impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic. A first in over 30 years, the loss is a drop from the KSh49 billion profit the Group registered last year.
Of the loss, $5.5 billion was reported by Emirates, the airline arm of the Group, which last year made a $288 million profit. The airline’s revenues declined by 66% to $8.4 billion. The Group cited flight and travel restrictions that caused the suspension of flights, shrinking its total revenues to $9.7 billion.
The airline carried 6.6 million passengers, down 88% in 2020-21, with seat capacity down by 83%.
Emirates’ total passenger and cargo capacity fell by 58%, to 24.8 billion ATKMs. Furthermore, the airline’s total operating costs decreased by 46% compared to last year, with fuel bill declining by 76% to $1.7 billion.
However, the airline’s cargo operations were resilient, recording a revenue of $4.7 billion over the year, an increase of 53% over the previous year due to a rise in demand for freight services.
The Group’s cash balance was $5.4 billion, down 23% from last year.
Other airlines that have reported losses include International Airlines Group (parent of British Airways), Air France-KLM (lost $7.5 billion), and Deutsche Lufthansa, which lost $8.1 billion.
Emirates is a state-owned airline based in Garhoud, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It is a subsidiary of The Emirates Group. It is also the largest airline in the Middle East and the world’s fourth-largest airline by scheduled revenue passenger-kilometres flown.
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