The Dnata ground handling company and the airline carrying the same name, the Emirates Group, have reported their best-ever half-year profit, exceeding the previous record set last year by 138%.
With revenues of US$ 18.3 billion, the group reported a US$ 2.7 billion profit for the first half of the 2023–2024 fiscal year, almost matching the profit the airline reported for the full 2022–2023 fiscal year.
Emirates Airline, which continues to experience strong passenger demand across its network and particularly for its destination of Dubai, generated the vast majority of that profit.
“We are seeing the fruition of our plans to return stronger and better from the dark days of the pandemic,” commented Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the chairman and chief executive of Emirates, on Thursday.
“This is a tremendous achievement that speaks to the talent and commitment within the organization, the strength of our business model, and the power of Dubai’s vision and policies that have enabled the creation of a strong, resilient, and progressive aviation sector,” Sheikh Al Maktoum continued.
Emirates says it expects strong customer demand to continue for the remainder of the year, despite a slowing global economy and mounting challenges such as rising oil prices, currency fluctuations, and growing tensions in the Middle East.
The airline did, however, issue a warning, stating that it would continue to be “agile” in the way it allocates its resources in a “dynamic marketplace.”
Nevertheless, the airline appears to be concentrating on expansion at the moment, adding Airbus A380 services to a number of locations, starting a new nonstop route to Montreal, and raising capacity by 25% in the first half of the year.
The Emirates Group expanded its global workforce by 6% to almost 109,000 workers in order to accommodate all of this growth, and it is still holding hiring drives to keep up with the airline’s aggressive growth plans.
Although Emirates has now put 104 Airbus A380s back into service, about 17 of the double-deck superjumbos are still in long-term storage.
