Qatar Airways is requesting financial support from the Qatari government, despite being one of the only airlines continuing to maintain scheduled commercial passenger services.
Over the next two weeks, the business expects to operate 1,800 flights despite the heavy loss of demand and other companies grounding entire fleets.
Qatar Airways has been operating some flights at 50 per cent occupancy or less and if it fills 45 per cent of seats on flights over the next two weeks it will carry about 250,000 passengers. Chief executive Akbar Al Baker told Reuters on Sunday that the carrier could soon run out of the cash needed to continue flying.
Several states have already come to the aid of other struggling airlines around the world due to the coronavirus pandemic that has virtually halted international travel, with the US offering $58 billion in aid.
“We have received many requests from governments all over the world, embassies in certain countries, requesting Qatar Airways not to stop flying,” Al Baker said.
The state-owned carrier is operating flights to Europe, Asia and Australia, repatriating people who have been left stranded after many countries shut their borders. As well as introducing a focused market strategy to promote its continued operations under the hashtag #takingyouhome.
We are working with embassies around the world to help get their citizens home. We have operated one-off flights to cities such as Phnom Penh, Bali and Manila. We carried over 5,000 passengers home on these services in the last week. #TakingYouHome https://t.co/4ZFVppju5A
— Qatar Airways (@qatarairways) March 29, 2020
“We will fly as long as it is necessary and we have requests to get stranded people to their homes, provided the airspace is open and the airports are open,” Al Baker said.
“We will surely go to our government eventually.”
The airline had said before the pandemic it was expecting to report a loss this financial year because of the blockade from other gulf states that forces it to fly longer, more expensive routes to avoid airspace that it had been banned from using by some of its neighboring countries.
Rivals Emirates and Etihad Airways, of the United Arab Emirates, have grounded passenger operations, which Al Baker said had not benefited his airline.
“We are not taking advantage … this is a time to serve people who want to be with their loved ones in a very trying time,” he said.
Any form of support from the oil-fuelled Qatari government may allow the operation to capitalise in the future on any PR gains made by repatriating people.
Whether the airline is willing to run cash to zero holding out for a cash injection from its government is yet to be seen.
