Qatar Airways operates out of a gleaming new airport in the
capital, Doha, on the eastern coastline of the Arabian Peninsula, where the
World Cup will be held for the first time in the Middle East later this year.
The airline says revenue reached $14.4 billion, up 78%
compared to last year. It carried 18.5 million passengers during the 2021-22
fiscal year, a more than 200% jump from the previous year.
It’s a sharp reversal for the airline, which suffered a
staggering net loss of $4.1 billion in the previous fiscal cycle due to the
coronavirus pandemic and the grounding of its Airbus A380 and A330 wide-body
jets.
The airline’s fortunes also reflect a world in which many
nations have rolled out successful vaccine campaigns, allowing travel to pick
back up.
Qatar Airways was buoyed during the pandemic’s hardest
months with a $3 billion lifeline from the Qatari government that helped keep
its operations afloat as it struggled with long-haul travel restrictions wrought
on by the virus. Its main competitor, Dubai’s flagship Emirates Airline, also
received a multibillion-dollar payment by the Dubai government during the
pandemic. The two airlines serve as key economic mainstays for their respective
countries, which rely heavily on tourists and transit passengers.
The airline, however, says this year’s “record earnings are
the result of decisions made during the pandemic to expand the Qatar Airways’
passenger and cargo networks”, including a more accurate forecast of the global
market recovery and strong cost control.
The 25-year-old airline flies to more than 140 destinations,
including Atlanta’s Hartsfield, where it competes with Delta for international
travelers at the world’s busiest airport for passenger traffic.
The airline’s brand is already to familiar to European
soccer fans, where it has partnerships with FC Bayern München and Paris
Saint-Germain. In the United States, it has a brand partnership with the
Brooklyn Nets. -AP