Gulf carrier Emirates says it has returned a massive $1.4 billion in refunds to customers since the Covid-19 pandemic started to impact global travel.
That represents more than one million refund requests and it has cleared 90% of its refund backlog.
"We are committed to honouring refunds and are trying our utmost to clear the massive and unprecedented backlog that was caused by the pandemic," said Emirates President, Sir Tim Clark.
"There are cases which will take a bit more time for our customer teams to manually review and complete. We are grateful to our customers for their patience and understanding."
The airline posted a net profit for the financial year ending in March of $288 million which was up from $237 million a year earlier.
However, it is now only serving just over 50% of destinations compared to its pre-pandemic network.
Chief Operating Officer Adel al-Redha recently said it expects to resume flights to all ‘network destinations’ by next summer.
It has announced voluntary reductions and layoffs in phases over the past few months but hasn’t disclosed actual numbers.
Before the pandemic it had a workforce of about 60,000.
Written by Ray Montgomery, Asia Pacific editor
