The Australian national carrier Qantas will not operate long haul flights until July 2021, the airline announced on Thursday.
The Australian airline was hit hard by the corona crisis and on Thursday announced a loss of 2.7 billion Australian dollars, which is about 1.9 billion US dollars, for the 2019/2020 financial year. Where Qantas had started the financial year successfully, sales plummeted in the first half of the current calendar year due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The airline took rigorous measures to cut costs. For example, the workforce was reduced by 6,000 employees and the Boeing 747 fleet was retired. In addition, all Airbus A380s are in storage.
“The impact of COVID on all airlines is clear. It’s devastating and it will be a question of survival for many. What makes Qantas different is that we entered this crisis with a strong balance sheet and we moved fast to put ourselves in a good position to wait for the recovery.”
Alan Joyce, Qantas Group CEO
Qantas is not the only airline to cut long-haul flights from it’s network for a longer period of time. Earlier Ukraine International Airlines announced the airline would not operate long-haul flights until April 2021.