Emirates president forecasts quick return of passengers and profitability - Arabianbusiness

Emirates president forecasts quick return of passengers and profitability - Arabianbusiness

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.”