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Qantas Airways said on Thursday that the pandemic cost it 4 billion Australian dollars ($ 2.9 billion) in revenue in the last fiscal year and warned that international travel will not resume by mid-2021.
The Australian airline reported an underlying taxable profit of AU $ 124 million ($ 89 million) for the fiscal year ending June, a decline of 90.6% from the profit of AU $ 1.33 billion that a year earlier was placed.
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The carrier’s statutory net loss for the last year was AU $ 1.96 billion ($ 141 billion).
Alan Joyce, chief executive of Qantas, said international routes would not reopen until mid-next year and U.S. services could depend on a widely available COVID-19 vaccine.
Routes would be reopened per country, depending on the spread of viruses.
“New Zealand is an obvious example that potentially needs to open up relatively quickly compared to other countries around the world,” Joyce said.
“The US, with the level of prevalence there, is likely to take some time. It will probably need a vaccine before we can see that, “he said.
AIRLINES WANT TO FOLLOW AFTER SCHEDULE CREW, PILOTS FOR FULL FLIGHTS, EXPERT PREDICTS
“We could potentially see a vaccine by the middle as the end of next year and countries like the US could be the first country to have widespread use of that vaccine, so that could mean the US at the end of the market. is seen ’21, ‘he added.
The first six months of 2019 were the most difficult conditions in Qantas’ 100-year history, Joyce said.
The airline recorded an AU $ 771 million ($ 554 million) profit before tax in the first half of the fiscal year before the pandemic hit.
Joyce said Qantas was in a better financial position than many airlines to survive the pandemic.
“We have the lowest cash burn, we believe, of any major aviation group in the world,” Joyce said.
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“AU $ 40 million ($ 29 million) per week is still a large number, but it is much lower than other airlines in North America and Europe and that gives us the longest runway of any airline group there is. through to ’21 and into ’22 and we may need that, ‘he added.
