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Emirates hits new high with record half year results
By siliconindia
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Tuesday, 02 November 2010, 22:43 IST
New York: The sate-owned airline of Dubai has produced a net profit of $925 million, for the first six months of its current financial year ending September 30, 2010. This represents an outstanding 351.2 percent increase compared to $205 million, for the same period in 2009.
"The results for the first half of the 2010-11 financial year are incredibly robust, and reflect Emirates' success in growing customer demand, supported by investment in new aircraft, products and customer service. We continue to invest our profits in growing the business and our healthy financial position enables us to successfully meet all of our financial commitments and raise financing for future aircraft deliveries. Our strong position today is reflective of our ability to adapt, returning us to a vigorous period of growth. With 62 new state-of-the-art aircraft ordered in the first half, we remain well positioned to capitalize on this growth," said HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, Chairman and Chief Executive, Emirates Airline and Group.
Highlighting a positive shift in the aviation sector, Emirates airline has seen a marked increase in passenger traffic, carrying 15.5 million passengers and recording a strong passenger seat factor at 81.2 percent, the highest ever for a first six month reporting period. Premium class seat factors have also risen by 2.6 percent points, reflecting an encouraging change in the global economic outlook.
Emirates SkyCargo has also seen a strong half year performance across the network, posting an increase in revenue of 48.4 percent to AED 4.4 billion, with cargo tonnage up by 23.7 percent to 897 thousand tons, compared with 725 thousand tons for the same period last year. SkyCargo continues to post steady revenue growth contributing around 17.8 percent of the airlines transport revenue.
Emirates' cash balances grew to $3.4 billion at the end of September, a significant improvement of 18.5 percent or $ 529 million when compared to March 31, 2010. Fuel continues to be the most significant expenditure for the airline with operating costs up 22.6 percent to $6.3 billion.
Emirates' revenue, including other operating income, of $7.2 billion for the half-year represented a strong growth of 35.5 percent compared to revenue of $5.3 billion during the same period last year.
Fueling growth in the aviation and tourism industry globally, Emirates has launched six new destinations since April this year - Amsterdam, Prague, Madrid, Dakar (passenger operations) in addition to Almaty and Bagram (freighter only operations). Existing markets have also been given a boost with increased frequencies and capacity - through larger aircraft.
Emirates has launched two new A380 destinations, Manchester and Beijing. The A380 continues to be popular in all destinations that it serves and has become the airline's flagship in terms of passenger comfort, innovation, operating and environmental efficiency and revenue generation. Emirates continued to invest heavily in its product in the first half with the delivery of six new wide-body aircraft, five Airbus A380s and one Boeing 777 and the opening of a new dedicated lounge at Shanghai Pudong International Airport. A further two new aircraft are scheduled to be delivered before the end of the financial year (March 31, 2011).