Emirates refunds AED 6.3 billion to customers

Emirates has completed an intensive programme to clear its backlog of refund requests which was caused by pandemic-related travel disruption.Over the seven-month period starting April, Emirates received, validated and processed nearly 1.7 million refund requests. This resulted in the airline returning AED 6.3 billion refunds to its customers. Of this sum, AED 4.7 billion was refunded to customers who had booked directly with the airline, and the remainder was returned via travel agencies. In addition, Emirates managed over 130,000 refunds-related queries from customers and travel agency partners and made status changes to nearly 4 million flight coupons.

Sir Tim Clark, President, Emirates Airline said, “In the early months of 2020, COVID-19 massively disrupted travel around the world and led to an unprecedented volume of refunds requests across the aviation and travel industry, including at Emirates. It was not a situation any airline wanted, particularly while also facing a cash crunch from drastically reduced operations. Through those difficult months, as we dealt with the impact of the pandemic on our business, we’ve never lost sight of our commitment to our customers. We still have higher volumes of refunds and flight coupon change requests compared to pre-pandemic times, but we now have the capability to manage these within a 7-day turnaround.”

Sir Tim added, “In addition to honouring refunds, Emirates offered our customers flexibility to travel at a later date, and we also helped our frequent flyers to retain their tier status and introduced other ways for them to earn and burn their Miles. For those of our customers who continued to fly, Emirates offered the industry’s first free global COVID-19 cover for their added peace of mind, we put in place rigorous bio-safety measures on the ground and in the air, and we ensured that information on the latest travel requirements was easily available on our website.”