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 $172 million to $758 million, driven by a 38 per cent drop in revenues, which stood at US$1.7 billion. This was partially off-set by a 27 per cent reduction in direct operating costs to US$1.9 billion, and a 21 per cent 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 per cent from the same period the previous year. Average seat load factor was 71 per cent.

Available Seat Kilometres reduced by 53 per cent to 23.69 billion. Cargo revenues were $0.49 billion, an improvement of $130 million (37 per cent) 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 per cent, despite the onset of COVID-19, with a 12 per cent reduction in passenger numbers, and a 9.5 per cent reduction in Available Seat Kilometres.

Q1 seat load factor was 74 per cent (January’s performance was significantly stronger than the same month in 2019, with a seat load factor of 81.9 per cent), and yield at $5.92 cents. Unit revenue in Q1 reduced by 3.3 per cent to $4.14 cents, offset by continuous focus on driving down unit costs, which were reduced by 2.4 per cent to $7.01 cents.

Commenting on the airline’s performance, Tony Douglas, Group CEO of Etihad Aviation Group, said, “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.” “While we have revised our outlook for the rest of 2020 based on current realities, we remain optimistic that as international borders re-open, we will increase our flying and carry more guests securely and with greater peace of mind, supported by the Etihad Wellness programme and our new Wellness Ambassadors. By September, we aim to increase our worldwide flights to half our pre-COVID-19 capacity,” he added.

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.

WAM