The Emirates Group posts $1.2 billion net-profit for the first half of 2022
Emirates Group has posted a significant profit for the first half of its 2022-23 financial year. According to the group, it recorded a net profit of AED 42. billion across the six months, corresponding to $1.2 billion.
The Emirates airline carried 20 million passengers during the half, a 228% increase year on year, showing the carrier’s strong post-pandemic recovery.
Just over two and a half years ago, the entire Emirates fleet was grounded when the United Arab Emirates closed its borders at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Following a strong recovery, the airline group now hopes to continue restoring its operations to pre-pandemic levels over the coming months.
Emirates boosted its passenger capacity (measured in available seat kilometers) by 123% in the first six months of its financial year. In the same period, its revenue passenger kilometers increased by 265%. Aircraft were far fuller than in 2021, with an average load factor of 78.5% compared to the previous year.
The increase in passengers was partially responsible for the decrease in cargo. A year ago, Emirates used some of its passenger aircraft to carry freight. As these have been converted back into passenger aircraft, Emirates SkyCargo only managed to move 936,000 tonnes, a 14% decrease year on year.
According to schedule data from Cirium, the airline’s operations changed between the two years. Of the 68,379 passenger flights scheduled during the half, 17,367 (25%) were operated by the Airbus A380. This is a massive 245% increase from 2021, when just 5,024 Airbus A380 flights were scheduled, corresponding to 13% of the total schedule. According to fleet data from ch-aviation.com, most of the airline’s Boeing 777s are in service today, while 82 of 116 Airbus A380s (71%) are active.
Based on two key factors, Emirates’ operating costs rose significantly compared to the previous year. Firstly, overall capacity grew by 40% to 22.8 billion available tonne kilometers, and naturally, more flights mean more needs to be spent on fuel, crew, airport fees, etc…
Dialing in on fuel, the airline needed 65% more fuel than the previous year. However, the average price of oil also doubled. Fuel accounted for around 38% of the airline’s operating costs this half, compared to just 20% the previous year.
The airline portion of the Emirates Group posted a record profit of AED 4 billion ($1.1 billion) following a more considerable loss last year. dnata, which handles airport operations at airports worldwide, saw a much smaller profit. For the half, dnata posted AED 236 million ($64 million) profit, around three times that of last year.
The different divisions of dnata each saw uplifts in revenue, though they weren’t consistent.
