Qantas Airlines has posted another major pandemic-related loss, but is hopeful international travel will resume before the Yuletide season.
Australia's flag carrier lost $1.73 billion in the 2020-2021 financial year, as the global health crisis worsened.
The airline is optimistic Australia's two most populous states - Victoria and New South Wales - will lift most of their border restrictions by Dec. 1, Qantas Chief Executive Officer Alan Joyce said Thursday.
Joyce pointed to "diabolical" border conditions for its loss, noting the airline's financial position reflected a full year of border lockdowns and more than 330 days of local travel curbs.
Qantas has been forced to live off its stimulus debt load to weather the pandemic disruption, which has wiped around $12 billion in total revenue.
Qantas estimates that COVID-19 has so far cost it roughly $16 billion in lost revenues over the past two financial years. It expects the loss to increase to $20 billion by end of 2021.
New South Wales tallied more than 1,000 community infections over a 24-hour timeframe as of Wednesday - the highest figure of daily infections reported in Australia since the pandemic broke out.
Despite its current financial loss, Qantas on Thursday said it was touting its plan to restart international travel within the coming months.
Qantas share price was up by 2% to $4.98 Thursday. But the stock was trading around 15% below brokers' consensus share price, S&P Global Market Intelligence data show.
Offsetting its $1.4 billion top-line profit for the current half year, Qantas said it had already attained $650 million per year of ongoing savings from its restructuring and cost-cutting scheme.
As part of its massive restructuring program last year, Qantas had to let go of almost 10,000 employees from a total headcount of about 32,000 staff before the pandemic, Joyce told CNBC.
Qantas expects international routes to destinations with lower number of immunization such as the Philippines, South Africa, or Indonesia to commence in April 2022 at the soonest.
Britain, the United States, Singapore, Canada, and Japan have also been earmarked as destinations Qantas plans to fly starting middle of December.
Meanwhile, a federal government restriction on Australians leaving the country without a valid exemption remains in effect.
