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The boss of Etihad Airways has said that a plethora of new global tariffs have caused more disruption to the airline than conflicts over the past year.
Antonoaldo Neves said business at the UAE-headquartered airline had been hit by changing travel patterns owing to shifts in tariff rates, likening the situation to “snowstorms” disrupting traffic for several days.
“If you see the disruption that we had in trade one year ago, that was bigger than any geopolitical tension,” he told the FT.
Flight plans and patterns changed at short notice several times last year, as US tariffs on other countries were threatened, implemented or altered, often with little warning. This week, US President Donald Trump brought in new tariffs of 10 per cent after the US Supreme Court struck down his existing levies.
“We saw an impact in demand in the short term but it came back very quickly,” he said. “It’s just like you have a big snowstorm, then you have three or four days that your traffic is all over [the place], and you get back on track.”
Despite the disruption, Etihad reported a record profit on Tuesday, as the company works towards being ready for a potential initial public offering.
Bankers had expected the airline to launch an IPO last year, but plans did not materialise.
Neves said the airline, which is fully owned by the Abu Dhabi government’s holding company ADQ, has a “clear direction that we have to operate as if we were listed”. He added: “It’s for the shareholder to decide; our job as management is to be ready.”
Etihad’s operating profits rose 37 per cent to AED6.3bn ($1.7bn), while revenues increased 21 per cent to AED30.7bn ($8.4bn), boosted by 29 new aircraft deliveries at a time when the industry has been held back by delays in plane manufacturing by the main providers Boeing and Airbus.
Load factor, a key industry metric measuring how many seats are occupied, increased 2 per cent to 88 per cent. The number of passengers it transported rose by a fifth to 22.4mn.
The company, which shrank during the pandemic, has been growing aggressively and launching new routes. It plans to take on 20 more aircraft annually for the next five years.
