Qatar Airways will continue to expand even as it prepares to announce "large" annual losses due to a blockade by neighbours, the airline's chief executive said on Monday. Akbar al-Baker said the Gulf carrier remained a "very robust company" despite being heavily affected by a regional diplomatic dispute that has seen it lose access to routes across Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt.
"Yes, it will be a large loss. When I say we will be declaring a large loss, for me, after making profit, then even if I lost only 10 million, it's a large loss," Baker told a press conference.
But he said that the national carrier is not in danger of a collapse. "You can see although that we are predicting a loss, we are still expanding, we are still investing, we are still buying airplanes. "We will keep on expanding, keep on recruiting not firing people, not parking airplanes, (and) shrinking the network, doing exactly the opposite."