The Abu Dhabi-based airline has recorded a 76 per cent falls in passengers carried throughout the year.
The airline recorded $1.2bn passenger revenues in 2020, down by 74 per cent from $4.8bn in 2019, due to fewer scheduled services and drastically fewer people travelling. A contributing factor to this was the total suspension of passenger services into and out of the UAE from end of March until early June 2020 to limit the spread of Covid, in line with a UAE government mandate. More than 80 per cent of total passengers carried in 2020 were flown during the first three months of the year, demonstrating the precipitous drop in demand as the global crisis deepened over the course of the year.
Operating costs meanwhile decreased by 39 per cent year-on-year, from $5.4bn in 2019 to $3.3bn in 2020, due to a combination of reduced capacity and volume-related expenses, as well as a focus on cost containment initiatives.
Tony Douglas, Group Chief Executive Officer, said: “While nobody could have predicted how 2020 would unfold, our focus on optimising core business fundamentals over the past three years put Etihad in good stead to respond decisively to the global crisis. We have taken bold action to protect our people and our guests, develop an industry-leading health and hygiene programme, and restructure our business to better position us for recovery.”
