The number of passengers traveling through Dubai International Airport decreased by about 20% in the first quarter of this year with the outbreak of the Corona pandemic.
The number of passengers decreased to about 18 million, and air transport decreased by 19%.
Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths said it is impossible to predict how long the global air travel sector will recover from the Corona pandemic.
He added that Dubai Airports Corporation made decisions to cut spending, and that he does not rule out job cuts in the future.
He also said that social spacing can also increase airline ticket prices if airlines are obliged to sell fewer tickets in order to keep some seats empty.
Griffiths added, "We will not be able to work with energy that will in any way approximate our original absorptive capacity if we are to be bound by social separation."
Dubai International Airport is one of the busiest in the world, and suspended passenger services in late March as the UAE took harsh measures to contain the virus.
Dubai airport suffered from the decline of passengers even before the Corona crisis, as it received 86.4 million passengers in 2019, down 3.1% from the previous year, marking at the time the first annual decline in travel traffic.
Passenger traffic was also disappointing in 2018, as it was expected to return to record double-digit growth, but recorded only 1% growth, the slowest pace in 15 years.
On Wednesday, Emirates Airlines announced the resumption of scheduled passenger services to nine destinations, starting May 21.
Last March, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) expected the UAE to lose 13.6 million passengers and basic revenue of $ 2.8 billion, as well as threatening 163,000 jobs in the aviation sector due to Corona.