Emirates refunds Dh1.9b to 650K customers in two months

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Dubai - The airline still has over half a million refund requests to manage, and expects to clear them within the next two months.

By Staff Report

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Published: Thu 2 Jul 2020, 1:54 PM

Last updated: Thu 2 Jul 2020, 11:46 PM

Dubai's flagship carrier Emirates has refunded over Dh1.9 billion to customers over the past two months after the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted travel plans for millions of customers around the world.

The airline has processed nearly 650,000 refund requests till date. In April, Emirates had announced that it would ramp up its refunds and clear its backlog by August, which at that time stood at nearly half a million requests. The airline crossed that target by early June, after expanding its processing capability from an average of 35,000 requests a month to nearly 200,000.

"This pandemic is a black swan event no one expected, impacting travellers and hitting the airline and travel industry hard... It is tough times for everyone, but we are committed to doing what's right by our customers. That's why we ringfenced cash to honour refunds, and invested resources to expedite processing. Our average processing time for refunds has reduced from 90 days to 60, and as we see lower volumes of new requests we expect this rate to further improve," said Adnan Kazim, the airline's chief commercial officer.

"We still have over half a million refund requests to manage, and expect to clear these within the next two months," he said.

With the gradual re-opening of borders over the summer, Emirates has revised its booking policies to offer customers more flexibility and confidence to plan their travel.

Customers who purchase an Emirates ticket by July 31, 2020 for travel on or before November 30, 2020 can enjoy these fully flexible terms when they book a Flex or Flex plus fare, or if they have to change their travel plans due to Covid-19 related flight or travel restrictions (applicable to all bookings):

> Free date change for travel in the same cabin to the booked destination, or to/from Dubai

> Free rebooking to any alternate Emirates destination in the same region, or to/from Dubai

> Extended ticket validity for 2 years from the purchase date for future use

> Convert the ticket value to a travel voucher that may be used as credit towards future travel purchases with Emirates, providing flexibility to reschedule when they are ready to travel again

waheedabbas@khaleejtimes.com


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