Etihad moves 3.5m passengers in six months
Operating revenues totalled $1.67b, but with a 38% drop from a year ago
Abu Dhabi’s Etihad carried 3.5 million passengers in the first six months, compared with 8.2 million a year ago, as the pandemic grounded fleets.
This resulted in operating losses of $758 million with revenues hit due to the closure of international borders, and the suspension of flights to halt the spread of the Covid-19 virus. It had a loss of $586 million in the same period last year. Passenger revenues for the first-half totalled $1.01 billion, while cargo added another $490 million. (The seat load factor through this period was at 71 per cent.)
Operating revenues totalled $1.67 billion, but with a 38 per cent drop from a year ago.
“Etihad faced a set of enormous and unpredictable challenges in the first six months of the year,” Etihad CEO Tony Douglas said in a statement. “By September, we aim to increase our worldwide flights to half our pre-COVID-19 capacity. While we have revised our outlook for the rest of 2020 based on current realities, we remain optimistic that as international borders reopen, we
Etihad faced a set of enormous and unpredictable challenges in the first six months ... By September, we aim to increase our worldwide flights to half our preCovid-19 capacity.”
Tony Douglas
| Etihad CEO
will increase our flying and carry more guests securely.”
The cargo business did well, with a surge in demand along with a spike in tariffs driving a 37 per cent jump in revenues to $490 million.
Etihad said it was forced to “redesign the organisation around” the need to make redundancies across several areas of the business. Temporary companywide salary cuts of 2550 per cent were effected.