Emirates revealed that is has returned over AED 5 billion ($1.4 billion) in COVID-19-related travel refunds to date.

More than 1.4 million refunds requests have been completed since March, representing 90% of the airline’s backlog. This includes all requests received from customers around the world up until the end of June, save for a few cases which require further manual review.

Since the pandemic hit, Emirates has invested additional resources to ramp up its processing capability. The airline also continues to work with industry partners to facilitate refunds for those who have booked their Emirates flights through travel agents, this includes enabling direct refunds processing via global booking systems (GDS).

Sir Tim Clark, President Emirates Airline says: “We understand that from our customers’ standpoint, each pending refund request is one too many. We’re committed to honouring refunds and are trying our utmost to clear the massive and unprecedented backlog that was caused by the pandemic. Most cases are straightforward, and these we will process quickly. But there are cases which will take a bit more time for our customer teams to manually review and complete. We’re grateful to our customers for their patience and understanding.”

As global travel markets slowly reopen, Emirates has gradually restarted its passenger operations around the world.