Air Algerie Company To Sustain 89 Billion Dinars Of Losses Due To Covid 19 This Year

The suspension of Algerian air traffic since mid-March, due to the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the world, has already caused for Air Algeria a loss of 38 billion DA on the turnover of passenger flights, an amount that would reach 89 billion DA by the end of the year, said Tuesday the spokesman of the company, Mr Amine Andaloussi.

“No date can be put forward for the resumption of passenger air traffic. The decision to open the airspace is a prerogative of the President of the Republic. However, even if we decide to resume this activity, we are going to do so up to 30% of our usual schedule, and we cannot exceed 40% by the end of 2020”, he told local news outlets.

Thus, “with such a scenario of resumption of activity, the company’s losses could reach 89 billion DA by the end of the year,” he predicted.

According to the experts’ forecasts, the return to the 2019 flight schedule, for Air Algerie and other airlines in the world, cannot be done before the year 2023 or even 2025, he noted.

Since the suspension of air traffic on March 18, except for cargo flights and repatriation operations, some 17,620 Air Algerie flights have been cancelled, whether for internal or external routes, he said.
The company, which has repatriated more than 8,000 Algerians stranded abroad since the suspension of air and sea traffic, plans to organise other repatriation flights before the end of the week, he said.

But even in case of resumption of activity, passengers with tickets will be the main beneficiaries, according to the Air Algerie spokesman who foresees, referring to experts on the subject, a “low interest” on flights because of persistent fears about the pandemic.

“The experts believe that everything that the world airlines have suffered so far is only a first shock. These airlines will suffer a second, harder shock, that of weak passenger flows after the recovery,” he said.

Mr Andaloussi specified that the treasury of Air Algeria currently amounts to 65 billion DA.

“We still have 65 billion DA of treasury. And despite the crisis, we have incompressible expenses that we must honor, namely aircraft maintenance, seat rent, suppliers’ and service providers’ expenses and of course salaries,” he said.