Mubasher: Qatar Airways is likely to suffer annual losses after the Saudi siege that resulted in closing some of the airline’s routes.
CEO Akbar Al Baker said in a Bloomberg interview on Tuesday that it was too early to talk about losses and their volume, indicating that his company’s net income had increased 22% to reach QAR 1.97 billion ($525 million) in the year-to-March.
“It is painful because there are many routes that slide as much as 2 1/2 longer, and there are routes that are narrow-body routes where we had to convert to wide-body in order carry enough fuel to go the longer distance,” the CEO added.
Qatar Airways, which ranked the second biggest Persian Gulf airline, is currently working on replacing the lost flights according to the available routes while trying to maintain the same number of flights. These steps follow the barriers imposed by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and UAE.
Al Baker noted previously that the company was not significantly affected by these restrictions, indicating that Qatar Airways had the ability to withstand the situation.
It is worth mentioning that Qatar Airways’ sales had jumped 10% to reach QAR 38.9 billion in the current fiscal year due to adding 10 destinations.
Despite that, Qatar Airways has lost nearly 11% of its network and around 20% of revenue, the CEO added.
Qatari flights carried 32 million passengers in 2017, compared to 26.6 million in 2016.
On Monday, Qatar Airways announced that it was about to sign an agreement to acquire a 9.61% stake in Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways in a step that aims to give the Qatari carrier a first foothold in East Asia and to substitute the Arab countries’ air blockade.
