Emirates airline earns 21% more than the previous year despite the pandemic

The Emirates airline closed its fiscal year, which ends March 31, with a net profit of $288 million, up 21% from the previous year despite the pandemic and the paralysis of the aviation sector, according to a press release issued by the company and available on its website. The company has made a major effort to reduce costs due to the sharp drop in revenue and has announced that, due to the current situation of uncertainty, it will not deliver dividends this year. 

The group has had to face a 6% decrease in revenue compared to last year - remaining at $25.1 billion - due to the closure of the runway at Dubai International Airport for 45 days since March and the COVID-19 pandemic. The company has pointed out that it was only in the last quarter of this year that it was affected by these factors, while in the two previous quarters revenues were much higher than last year.  

Total costs for the airline were up to $24.611 billion, a reduction of 6.8% from 2018-2019 ($26.407 billion). The operating cost has been reduced by 10% because the average price of jet fuel decreased by 9%, according to Emirates. General passenger traffic decreased by up to 4% over the previous year and the company transported 56.2 million people. The Emirate company said in its press release that profits could have been even higher if the airports had not been closed and airline activity had been halted because of the pandemic.  

The company's ebitda -pre-tax profits- increased by 7.8% over the previous year and reached 6.533 billion dollars. The company's executive director, Ahmed bin Said Al Maktoum, predicts that it will take 18 months for the demand for flights to return to a kind of normalcy and has assured that Emirates is currently working to meet all health requirements. Al Maktum also pointed out that the pandemic will have a strong impact on the company's performance in 2020-2021.