Dubai: Emirates is likely facing a dent to its revenue this year after axing a number of routes because of imposing safety threats. But analysts say the airline should be able to mitigate the losses.

The airline has suspended services to Kiev, Ukraine, and Arbil, Iraq, while also announcing it will soon avoid flying over parts of Iraqi airspace in the wake of an increasing threat posed by rising instability in the two countries. The suspension of Ukrainian services was an immediate reaction to the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine last month.

“Many natural routes for a carrier located in the Gulf will require re-routing and extra time. That is costly, particularly if avoiding Iraq on flights to Europe [as this] requires an additional 45 minutes per flight. That’s about a 10 per cent increase in distance and about 5 per cent more fuel,” said US-based analyst Ernest Arvai, chief executive of The Arvai Group, in an email.

Emirates is already facing a Dh1 billion dent in revenue due to the 80-day capacity reducing runway closure at Dubai International Airport that ended last month.

In recent months, Emirates has also suspended and re-launched services to Peshawar and Karachi in Pakistan due to terrorist attacks at the airport.

“The recent announcements by Emirates to avoid war zones is generally viewed as wise, and placing safety first...Emirates, as an industry leader, is setting an example for others to follow,” Arvai said.

The Dubai-based carrier has also suspended services to Conakry, Guinea, following the outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa.

Emirates, which carried more than 43 millions passengers last year, is trying to avoid the spread of the virus through its network. The 2002-2003 spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) was linked to air travel.

“The cessation of services due to war zones and Ebola fears will negatively impact Emirates’ bottom line, as it will need to cut back existing services that were established and profitable. This will likely cause Emirates to move forward its timetable for the introduction of new services, or increase flights to adjacent countries with safe airports as the alternative for passengers travelling into war zones,” Arvai said.

Emirates did not respond to questions about the revenue impact of route suspensions.

“While there is a cost to [suspending services], it provides significant comfort to passengers, and their families, that Emirates will keep them safe, an airline’s first priority,” Arvai said.

But the airline will be buoyant on its network of around 140 destinations (including suspended routes) delivering an expected revenue of Dh90 billion in the 2014/2015 financial, analyst say. Emirates’ financial year is from April 1 to March 31.

“The route suspensions will have an effect, but Emirates’ network is so broad that it can shuffle around capacity reasonably easily to minimise the problems,” said Australia-based senior aviation analyst Simon Elsegood at Capa — Centre for Aviation.

An accident, in any form, can be disastrous for an airline, since the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, passenger numbers have considerably dropped at the already unprofitable Malaysian airline. The Malaysian government is now looking to rescue its national carrier through privatisation following the second disaster, MH17, this year.

Emirates is also cutting capacity on the Dubai-Perth route by replacing a Boeing 777-300ER with a smaller 777-200LR between October and March. The smaller plane equates to around 100 less economy seats each way. Emirates has cited the need to redeploy the larger aircraft on its expanding network for the capacity change.