United Arab Emirates (UAE) largest airline Emirates Airlines (UL: EMIRA) announced having recorded net annual losses of $5.5 billion for the first time in a period of 33 years courtesy of the coronavirus pandemic.
The chairman of Emirates Airlines, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, made the announcement on June 15 adding that recovery from the pandemic won’t be a downhill task since there is no clear indication of when the pandemic will be coming to an end.
Emirates is owned by Dubai’s government, according to the company’s financials complied on March, since the pandemic started the government has injected a total of $3.1 billion into the airline to cushion it from negative shocks affected the global aviation industry.
Dubai’s government made its first injection of $2.2 billion last year to cushion the airline, thereafter it topped up another $1.1 billion.
This also comes as the first time in a period of 36 years which the airline has recorded annual net loss. Last year was also the year Emirates recorded the lowest passengers carried in the last 20 years.
The airline says in 2020 it only filed 44.3% of all its passenger seats, this was a huge decline rate compared to the average of 78.4% the company recorded in 2019 fiscal year before the pandemic.
