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Qatar Airways has said that its revenue and operating income grew by 7.22 per cent in the 2017/18 financial year despite the ongoing “Illegal blockade by its neighbouring countries.”
The airline, however, said that its capacity within the period grew by 9.96 per cent, stressing that its lower revenue growth was directly attributable to the blockade since June 5, 2017, which impacted departing seats by 19 per cent.
A statement by the company said that cargo revenue witnessed very impressive growth of 34.40 per cent against cargo capacity (available tonne kilometres) growing 13.95 per cent annually.
The statement hinted that the group generated EBITDAR Margin of 23 per cent at QAR 9.714bn. EBITDAR was lower than the previous year by QAR 1.759bn due to longer flying time resulting from the illegal blockade and loss of departing seats from the blockading countries.
Replacing 18 mature routes, which were closed due to the blockade, the airline opened 14 new destinations during the fiscal year (24 new destinations to date).
New destinations come with launch costs and the necessity to establish market presence, which resulted in an overall net loss of QAR 252m. With a positive operating cash inflow, the cash position of the group remained strong at QAR 13.312bn.
Qatar Airways’ Mr. Akbar Al Baker, Group Chief Executive, said the turbulent year had inevitably had an impact on its financial results, which reflected the negative effect the illegal blockade has had on the airline.
:However, I am pleased to say that thanks to our robust business planning, swift actions in the face of the crisis, our passenger-focused solutions and dedicated staff, the impact has been minimised – and has certainly not been as negative as our neighbouring countries may have hoped for,” he said.
A strategic and rapid response from the airline when neighbouring countries illegally blocked Qatar’s airspace on June 5, 2017 put Qatar Airways in a position of strength from which to recover from the unprecedented attack on the country’s sovereignty.
Within 10 weeks new destinations to Sohar, Prague and Kyiv were announced and launched, while other routes saw an increase in frequency and capacity, thus swiftly redeploying capacity with a view to soften the impact of being illegally blockaded from 18 regional gateways.
The airline has launched 24 new destinations in total since the start of the blockade, further expanding its network of more than 150 exciting gateways around the world and continuing its ambitious growth plans in Europe and Asia.
Against this backdrop of regional political tension, just six weeks after the start of the blockade, Qatar Airways proved to the world that its neighbours had failed to reach their objective in reducing the airline to collapse by instead winning the coveted title of ‘Skytrax Airline of the Year’ for the fourth time in less than 10 years.
The airline also took home awards for ‘World’s Best Business Class’, ‘Best Airline in the Middle East’, and ‘World’s Best First Class Airline Lounge’.
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