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SYDNEY: Australian airline Qantas reported a revenue drop of $ 5.5 billion (SGD 7.3 billion) during the second half of 2020 and said international passenger flights would not resume until October as the pandemic continued to ravage the industry.
The country’s largest airline said it suffered an underlying loss of A $ 1.1 billion (US $ 858 million) in the six months to December 31, and legal losses amounted to A $ 1.5 billion.
“These numbers are stark, but they won’t come as a surprise,” said Qantas CEO Alan Joyce.
“A year ago, none of us knew what impact COVID-19 would have on the world or on aviation. It is clearly worse than anyone expected,” he said.
“The border closures meant that we lost practically 100 percent of our international flights and 70 percent of our domestic flights; three-quarters of our revenues, about A $ 7 billion, went to them.”
Joyce noted that the company had already seen revenue drop by A $ 4 billion during the first half of 2020, bringing the total impact of the pandemic to A $ 11 billion.
“That is a huge number, probably a higher number than any other company in Australia is experiencing due to COVID-19,” he told a news conference.
READ: From travel to nowhere to ‘flight lessons’, how airlines stay afloat amid COVID-19 pandemic
Joyce delayed the expected resumption of international passenger flights from July until the end of October, but said the cost of keeping those planes grounded was being largely offset by increased cargo operations.
With Australia’s successful containment of the pandemic, Qantas marked a return to 60 percent of pre-coronavirus domestic capacity in late March and 80 percent in late June.
Qantas had posted a loss of $ 1.9 billion for the year ending June 30 when the coronavirus pandemic gripped the global economy.
Joyce said that a total of 8,500 employees would lose their jobs due to the crisis, and another 7,500 would remain suspended until international flights resume.
READ: Qantas will stop flying internationally, tells most of the workforce to withdraw
About 100 aircraft were also grounded as part of a $ 10 billion restructuring and cost-cutting effort that Qantas said would save A $ 1 billion a year from 2023.
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