The Sharjah-based airline Air Arabia has announced another round of layoffs, after 57 redundancies were made in the beginning of May.

The airline, which has about 2,000 employees, did not say how many employees had been affected.

Air Arabia reported a net profit of AED 71 million for the three months ending March 31 2020, a 45 per cent drop from the year-on-year figure of AED 128 million. In the same period, the airline posted a turnover of AED 901 million, a 12 per cent drop from the corresponding first quarter of last year.

At the time, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohamed Al Thani, Chairman of Air Arabia, said that the impact of the pandemic had affected the overall performance of the quarter, adding that the management team had taken a series of business decisions to control fixed and running costs during the period.

In June, the low-cost airline re-opened passenger flight bookings to countries including Pakistan, India, Egypt, Lebanon and Russia.

In October of last year, Air Arabia and Etihad Airways announced plans to launch a low-cost carrier operating out of Abu Dhabi, ‘Air Arabia Abu Dhabi’, in order to serve growing demand for budget travel from the UAE capital.

The Sharjah-based airline is not the only Gulf carrier to make layoffs during the pandemic – with Emirates also announcing confirmed plans to cut jobs, although it too did not reveal how many employees will be laid off.