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Qatar Airways reported on Tuesday a US$69m loss for the financial year ending March 31, citing a regional political dispute that has seen it banned from four Arab countries. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, and Bahrain have banned Qatar Airways since June 2017 as part of a dispute they have with the government of Qatar. “This turbulent year has inevitably had an impact on our financial results,” Qatar Airways CE Akbar al-Baker said. The airline said it carried 29.2m passengers in the year to March 31, down from 32m a year earlier. Qatar Airways lost access to 18 cities in the fall-out from the dispute, including to popular destinations in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It has also had to increase costs and operate longer flights on some routes to avoid the airspace of the four countries. The airline said it had mitigated the impact of the dispute by launching flights to new destinations, increasing flights on existing routes, and leasing aircraft to other airlines. “New destinations come with launch costs and the necessity to establish market presence, which resulted in an overall net loss,” the airline said.<br/>

American Airlines Group would consider barring passengers from changing nonrefundable tickets if Congress limits what carriers can charge for the adjustments, CEO Doug Parker said Tuesday. “That non-refundable ticket is of value to us,” Parker said. “We knew that seat was going to be filled. It allowed us to do other things. We sold the rest of the airplane knowing that seat was going to be filled.” Doing away with changes to nonrefundable fares would make airline flights more like baseball games or concerts, where customers aren’t typically reimbursed if they buy tickets and can’t use them. Carriers currently consider the ability to change a nonrefundable ticket as a service that carries a cost. Such fees, which run up to $200, anger many passengers. The language limiting what carriers can charge for ticket changes is being supported by consumer groups as a bipartisan provision. It is in a version of an aviation-policy bill sponsored by Republican Senator John Thune of South Dakota, who is chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Parker called the proposal “really bad for consumers” last week. While much of the bill has been agreed to by both parties, it hasn’t passed the committee yet as other issues are hashed out. The language on fees isn’t in a House version of the bill.<br/>