Etihad Airways has provided details of its half-year 2020 performance, which saw a strong start to the year, with the airline progressing well ahead of its transformation plan targets.
In a statement by the airline on Thursday, Core operating loss for this period increased by US$172 million to US$758 million, driven by a 38 percent drop in revenues, which stood at US$1.7 billion.
This was partially off-set by a 27 percent reduction in direct operating costs to US$1.9 billion, and a 21 percent reduction in general and administrative expenses to $0.40 billion, both driven by management cost containment initiatives and reduced operations.
Etihad carried 3.5 million passengers in H1, a reduction of 58 percent from the same period the previous year. Average seat load factor was 71 percent.
Available Seat Kilometres reduced by 53 percent to 23.69 billion.
Cargo revenues were $0.49 billion, an improvement of $130 million (37 percent) compared to the same period in 2019, with 254,345 leg tonnes of cargo carried. This was driven by an increase in demand and a spike in cargo fares.
The core operating result for the first three months of the year improved by 34 percent, despite the onset of COVID-19, with a 12 percent reduction in passenger numbers, and a 9.5 percent reduction in Available Seat Kilometres.
Q1 seat load factor was 74 percent (January’s performance was significantly stronger than the same month in 2019, with a seat load factor of 81.9 percent), and yield at $5.92 cents. Unit revenue in Q1 reduced by 3.3 percent to $4.14 cents, offset by continuous focus on driving down unit costs, which were reduced by 2.4 percent to $7.01 cents.
“Etihad faced a set of enormous and unpredictable challenges in the first six months of the year. We started 2020 strong, and recorded encouraging results as part of our continuing transformation programme. This left us in a relatively robust position when COVID-19 hit, allowing us to act with agility, and to mobilise all available resources as the crisis deepened, taking major steps to reduce costs through a wide-reaching series of measures,” said Tony Douglas, Group CEO of Etihad Aviation Group.
Etihad operated up to 40 of its fleet of 97 passenger aircraft in Q2, including Boeing 787 Dreamliners, 777-300ERs, and Airbus A320 family aircraft as belly-hold cargo freighters to complement Etihad Cargo’s operational fleet of six 777-200F freighters.
Between 25th March and 15th June, over 640 special passenger flights were operated to 45 online and offline destinations, using the passenger cabins of these aircraft to fly foreign nationals out of the UAE, and to bring UAE nationals back home.
