The “Qatar Airways” nightmare is repeated … freezing the A380s for two years

The CEO of Qatar Airways said that the company’s 10 Airbus A380 aircraft will likely not be in use for several years due to the impact of the coronavirus crisis on demand.

“We do not expect to use our A380 aircraft for at least the next two years,” Akbar Al Baker told an Internet conference.

The state-owned airline has grounded aircraft due to the impact of the coronavirus crisis on travel demand.

He said in June that the planes would remain idle until the middle of next year at the earliest. The airline plans to begin decommissioning the A380 by 2024, when its older aircraft completes 10 years in service.

Al-Baker said the A380s would return to service when the airline reaches the growth rate achieved in 2019 before the pandemic.

He added that the 100 destinations served by the plane are currently 25 fewer than planned due to the new wave of HIV infections in Europe and travel restrictions.

Last week, Qatar Airways Chief Executive Akbar Al-Baker said that the worst is yet to come for the company, whose business has been severely affected in the midst of the Corona pandemic, amid a significant drop in demand, a decline in sales, and the disruption of dozens of airlines that the company flies to.

In an interview with the American CNBC network, Al-Baker added that the continuation of the pandemic will cast a shadow over the performance of his company and the aviation sector in general, noting the difficulty of any recovery for the company’s business and the aviation sector before 2024, amid the strictures taken by governments to curb the spread of the virus.

Qatar Airways incurred losses estimated at about $ 1.9 billion in the fiscal year 2019-2020 due to the consequences of the pandemic, which are record losses for the company at a time when Al-Baker indicated that these numbers will not be the end of his company’s train of losses, with expectations of continuing in the near future.

He said, “I would like to inform you that our losses will continue because every flight will continue to record losses with the fact that the number of passengers available to travel is constantly decreasing … or that there are a large number of passengers to transport them as is happening with us now, but flights are one-way because most airports around the world. It has closed its doors due to the pandemic. “

Al-Baker called for continued government support for his company and said that any government in the world should support its airlines for the important role they play in supporting the national economy.

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