The Emirates Group has posted its first year of loss in over 30 years caused by a significant drop in revenue, fully attributed to the impact of COVID-19 related flight and travel restrictions throughout its entire financial year 2020-21.
The Emirates Group posted a loss of AED 22.1 billion (US$6.0 billion) for the financial year ended March 31, 2021 compared with an AED 1.7 billion (US$ 456 million) profit for last year. The Group's revenue was AED 35.6 billion (US$ 9.7 billion), a decline of 66% over last year's results. The Group's cash balance was AED 19.8 billion (US$ 5.4 billion), down 23% from last year mainly due to weak demand caused by the various pandemic related business and travel restrictions across all of the Group's core business divisions and markets.
For the first time in the Group's history, redundancies were implemented across all parts of the business. As a result, the Group's total workforce reduced by 31% to 75,145 employees, representing over 160 different nationalities.
Keeping a tight control on costs, across the Group, financial obligations were restructured, contracts renegotiated, processes examined and operations consolidated. The various cost reduction initiatives returned an estimated saving of AED 7.7 billion during the year.
In 2020-21, the Group collectively invested AED 4.7 billion (US$ 1.3 billion) in new aircraft and facilities, the acquisition of companies, and the latest technologies to position the business for recovery and future growth. It also continued to invest resources towards environmental initiatives, as well as supporting communities and incubator programs that nurture talent and innovation to drive future industry growth.
