Dubai’s Emirates Airline has seen its passenger traffic nearly triple during the summer months as more borders reopened and coronavirus restrictions eased. 

The long-haul carrier of Emirates Group, which incurred 22.1 billion dirhams ($6 billion) in annual loss for the financial year 2020-21, handled nearly 1.2 million passengers from July to August 2021, up by 198 percent from 402,000 in the same period last year. 

The airline carried 15.8 million passengers in 2020, making it the largest international airline last year, based on the statistics from the International Air Transport Association (IATA). 

The airline has gradually restored its operations across its network since Dubai eased its COVID-19 restrictions and reopened to international tourists last year.  

As of today, the carrier flies to more than 120 destinations, up from “just a handful” of cities in July 2020. More flights are expected to restart over the next few weeks. 

Global traffic

Global air traffic plummeted last year when borders around the world closed as part of precautionary measures to curb the spread of COVID_19. 

The latest IATA figures showed that global air travel has started to recover, supported by vaccine rollout and renewed consumer appetite for travel. 

Industry-wide revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) in July was still down 53.1 percent when compared with July 2019, but up by 123.9 percent when compared with July 2020. 

“International capacity rebounded across all regions that we tracked in July, most notably in Europe and the Middle East,” IATA said. 

(Writing by Cleofe Maceda; editing by Daniel Luiz) 

Cleofe.maceda@refinitiv.com 

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