The American airline United Airlines closed COVID year 2020 with a record loss of 7.1 billion dollars. Travel restrictions and other measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus hit aviation hard. The company sees 2021 as a transitional year in which the situation will gradually recover.
The loss contrasts sharply with the $ 3 billion profit that United Airlines put on the books a year earlier. While society expects the recovery to start as early as this year, it will certainly take up to 2023 before profit margins return to pre-crisis levels.
United Airlines’ revenues fell last year by almost two thirds to 15.4 billion dollars. In order to reduce costs, the company, like many branches, has withdrawn aircraft and reduced the number of employees. The companies have also raised billions of dollars in loans to cope with the crisis.
United Airlines’ CEO Scott Kirby looks with confidence to the future, with particular emphasis on improving long-term effectiveness. It expects the company to emerge from this situation ‘better, stronger and more profitable’. For the first quarter of this year, the company is still counting on a drop in operating income of 65 to 70 percent.
