Qatar Airways Announces Record-Breaking Loss

Qatar Airways has released its annual statement for the year ending March 31st, 2020. In the report, the airline confirmed a loss of around $1.9 billion blaming the coronavirus pandemic, its liquidation of shares in Air Italy and the ongoing boycott of Doha by four Arab nations for the drop.

Further hurting the airline was the February collapse of Air Italy, a regional carrier it held a 49% ownership stake in at its launch in 2018. Air Italy had been trying to rename and become a national carrier with flights across Europe. Qatar Airways in its financials said it likely would lose nearly $400 million alone on Air Italy.

Qatar Airways also restated its losses for the previous year in the financial report, putting it at close to $1.3 billion as opposed to the $639 million it earlier reported. It lost $69 million in 2018.

The airline’s losses exceeded 50% of the share capital. In this situation, the airline must hold an emergency meeting to discuss dissolving the company. So, at the meeting on September 24th, the government of Qatar provided a loan of 7.3 billion riyals. Apparently, this capital has been turned into share options, Qatar Airways CEO Akbar al-Baker said in a statement.

Altogether, the impact of COVID-19 has not been taken into account in these results. The most significant impact on the airline is no doubt Air Italy’s liquidation and the ongoing Arab states boycott. 

More recently, there have been reports indicating that Qatar Airways has transported into Libya 25,000 mercenaries. Those include 17,000 Syrian militants, 2,500 Tunisians who fought in the ranks of the Islamic State (IS) in Idlib and Aleppo, and other nationalities including the Sudanese. 

The four Arab states Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have placed travel ban and cut diplomatic ties with Qatar since June 2017, accusing Doha of funding terrorism and harboring fugitives.