Emirates Airline president Sir Tim Clark is confident the Dubai-based carrier will get back to profitability “fairly quickly”.
In its most recent financial results, Emirates Group reported its first loss in the company’s history as a result of the devastating impact of the global coronavirus crisis.
The group revealed a half-year net loss of $3.8 billion, while group revenue was $3.7 billion for the first six months of 2020, a drop of 74 percent over the same period the previous year.
In an interview with Aviation Business, Sir Tim conceded that the first half of last year had been “a disaster” for the group.
He said: “But of course, what could we do? We’ve got $350, $400 million aeroplanes sitting on the ground, 115 of those. And you have to make the payments and our debt providers and all the people involved in providing the funds that we borrowed to do that are not particularly helpful when it comes to moratoriums. Some do, but it’s been quite difficult. So we’ve had to meet our obligations.”
Almost exactly a year since the entire Emirates passenger fleet was initially grounded, the aviation industry continues to be at the mercy of border closures and changing rules and regulations as countries grapple to contain the spread of coronavirus.
However, Sir Tim said the company has now got 151 of its 777 aircraft “flying meaningfully”, which has “certainly arrested the cash outflow that we were agonising over about six or seven months ago”.
And he expects further good news on the horizon. He said: “Let’s assume that fuel remains in or around the 40, 50 dollar mark, I see no reason why we shouldn’t get back to some kind of profitability fairly quickly.”
Annual passenger demand for Middle East airlines slumped by nearly 73 percent in 2020. But Sir Tim also believed that, depending on the efficacy of the vaccine and also the success of its global distribution, demand for flying would return “at pace”.
“I think that people will continue to travel in all the segments. Some segments may be weaker than others in the short term, but eventually, it’ll come back,” he said. “What does that mean? There is absolutely no reason why our network should not be restored to its former glory with the fleet as it is.
“On top of that I see the opportunities that we have for the expansion of the network that we had planned … and that allows us to reactivate the A380 fleet.”
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