Qatar Airways suffers $4bn annual loss on pandemic hit

Qatar’s flagship airline carrier also said its operational loss shrank by 7 percent from the year before.

Qatar Airways announced on Monday that it suffered a more than $4bn loss in revenues over the last fiscal year, as lockdowns triggered by the coronavirus pandemic slashed demand for long-haul travel.

The major loss, which the state-owned airline largely attributed to the grounding of its Airbus A380 and A330 wide-body jets, highlights the dramatic toll of the pandemic on the industry.

Even so, the Doha-based airline reported an increase in earnings to $1.6bn before taxes and other costs compared to the previous year — costs that dropped significantly as the airline saved on jet fuel, reduced salaries by 15 percent and cut some 13,400 employees from its workforce. The pandemic has hit international routes the hardest, dealing a heavy blow to super connectors in the Persian Gulf that essentially lack domestic markets.