Emirates has ramped up its capability to process refunds.

The decision is designed lessen the impact on customers and travel trade partners hit by travel disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

With nearly half a million refund requests pending to manage, the airline has taken proactive steps to restructure its backend procedures and boost resourcing to accelerate the processing of refunds.

Pre-pandemic, Emirates processed an average of 35,000 refund requests in a month.

Now it is gearing up to handle 150,000 per month, and aims to clear its current backlog by early August.

Tim Clark, president Emirates Airline, said: “It is a difficult time for us, as it is for all airlines.

“We are dipping into our cash reserves by being proactive in processing refunds, but it is our duty and responsibility.

“We would like to assure our customers and trade partners that we will honour refunds, and that we are doing our best to speed things up.”

He added: “The situation was dynamic in the early weeks of the pandemic, but we have since re-written our Covid-19 waiver policy into a simple, globally-applied approach that puts customers first.

“We have also proactively contacted those of our customers who had submitted earlier requests for refunds or booking changes, to let them know of the new options available to them.”