In the first half of the 2018-19 financial year, Emirates Airlines net profit is AED226 million ($62 million), down 86%, compared to last year.
Emirates’ revenue, including other operating income, of AED48.9 billion ($13.3 billion) was up 10% compared with the AED44.5 billion ($12.1 billion) recorded during the same period last year.
Revenues were driven by increased agility in capacity deployment, and improved seat load factors despite fare increases reflect the healthy customer demand for Emirates’ products.
Emirates operating costs grew by 13% against the overall capacity increase of 3%.
On average, fuel costs were 42% higher compared to the same period last year, this was largely due to an increase in oil prices (up 37% compared to same period last year), as well as an increase in fuel uplift of 4% due to Emirates’ expanding fleet operations.
Fuel remained the largest component of the airline’s cost, accounting for 33% of operating costs compared with 26% in the first six months of last year.
Emirates Group Announces Half-year Performance
During the first six months of 2018-19, Emirates received 8 wide-body aircraft – 3 Airbus A380s, and 5 Boeing 777s, with 5 more new aircraft scheduled to be delivered before the end of the financial year.
It also retired 7 older aircraft from its fleet with further 4 to be returned by 31 March 2019.
The airline’s long-standing strategy to invest in the most advanced wide-body aircraft enables it to improve overall efficiency and provide better customer experiences.
Emirates continues to offer ever better connections for its customers across the globe with just one stop in Dubai.
In the first six months of its financial year, Emirates launched new passenger services to Stansted (UK) and Santiago (Chile). It also introduced a new linked service from Dubai via Bali to Auckland. As of 30 September, Emirates’ global network spanned 161 destinations in 85 countries. Its fleet stood at 269 aircraft including freighters.
Emirates further developed its partnership with flydubai, offering customers even more benefits as both airlines combined their loyalty programme under Emirates Skywards.
Emirates SkyCargo Hits Major Milestones
Customers also enjoy new flight choices as Emirates and flydubai continued to leverage their complementary networks to optimise flight schedules and offer new city-pair connections through Dubai, as well as open new routes including Kinshasa (Congo), Krakow (Poland), and Catania (Italy) in the first half of 2018-19.
Overall capacity during the first six months of the year increased a modest 3% to 31.8 billion Available Tonne Kilometres (ATKM).
Capacity measured in Available Seat Kilometres (ASKM), grew by 4%, whilst passenger traffic carried measured in Revenue Passenger Kilometres (RPKM) was up 6% with average Passenger Seat Factor rising to 78.8%, compared with last year’s 77.2%.
Emirates carried 30.1 million passengers between 1 April and 30 September 2018, up 3% from the same period last year.
The volume of cargo uplifted at 1.3 million tonnes is largely unchanged while yield improved by a healthy 11% .
This performance is the result of Emirates SkyCargo’s focussed investments in products and services tailored to key sectors, which gives it a strong competitive edge in a recovering global air freight market.
Read More: dnata Sees Steady Growth in 2018
