Emirates clears billion-pound Covid refund backlog

The carrier has processed almost 1.7 million refund requests since April. Of the total sum, £975 million was refunded to customers booking directly with the airline and the remaining £325 million was returned via agents.

The carrier also dealt with more than 130,000 refunds-related queries from customers and agents and made status changes to nearly four million flight coupons.

The scale of the project meant Emirates had 110 staff dedicated to validating and processing refunds, compared with the normal 19-person team pre-pandemic, with personnel moved from other jobs to assist.

Emirates president Sir Tim Clark said: "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 seven-day turnaround."