Emirates: New Competition, Geopolitics and Innovation — May 2022

Emirates was a great innovator, building a global hub at Dubai capturing traffic from traditional flag-carriers and offering a huge range of new intercontinental connections. It will emerge from the pandemic in good shape but facing a new competitive environment and having to innovate again.

Emirates reported results for FY 2022 (year to March 31^st) that showed a marked improvement on the previous year, though it remained in the red. The net loss was AED3.8bn (US$1.1bn) compared to AED 20.3bn ($5.5bn) in FY 2021. Revenue increased by AED28bn to AED58.3bn, mostly due to returning passengers (up by a factor of 6.5 to 19.6m), cargo revenue having surged in the previous year (because of an increase in unit rates rather than volume). The increase in operating costs was kept to AED13.7bn, almost all DOCs like fuel, handling and airport charges related to increased flying, which brought the 2022 total to AED59.6bn. At the EBIT level Emirates lost AED 0.4bn (after accounting for other operating income of AED 0.9bn), AED 15.5bn better than 2021. Net finance costs totalled AED3.4bn, down by AED2.2bn from 2021.