News Backgrounder
Emirates Airline to operate near 90% of pre-pandemic schedule from July
June 1st 2021
Dubai-headquartered Emirates Airline is expanding its summer season network “to meet strong leisure demand as entry restrictions ease for travellers”, it announced this month. Read More »
By the end of July, the Gulf carrier will be flying 880 services a week to 124 cities, a network that will be close to 90% of its pre-pandemic schedule.
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Emirates also announced it would resume flying its A380s on 129 services a week to 15 cities. It plans to activate 30 of the type alongside its 151 777s. Cities the A380 will serve during the northern Summer are Cairo, Jeddah, Amman, Guangzhou, London Heathrow, Manchester, Frankfurt, Vienna, Paris, Munich, Moscow, New York JFK, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Toronto.
Earlier in the month, the carrier posted a US$5.5 billion annual loss for its latest year, its first full-year deficit in more than three decades.
“Due to ongoing pandemic-related flight and travel restrictions, the airline reported a loss of 20.3 billion dirhams ($5.5 billion) after last year’s 1.1 billion dirhams ($288 million) profit,” it said in a statement. The carrier, which temporarily suspended operations last year, reported a revenue decline of 66%, to $8.4 billion, for the year to March 31. For the 12 months Emirates carried 6.6 million passengers, down 88% from its previous fiscal year.
“The COVID-19 pandemic continues to take a tremendous toll on human lives, communities, economies and on the aviation and travel industry,” Emirates Airline chairman and chief executive, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, said. The Emirates group was “hit hard by the drop in demand for international air travel as countries closed their borders and imposed stringent travel restrictions.”
