Emirates Group incurs loss for first time in over 3 decades

The Emirates Group, comprising Emirates Airline, dnata and other subsidiaries, announced its first year of loss in over 30 years.

The loss is caused by a significant drop in revenue, fully attributed to the impact of Covid-19 related flight and travel restrictions throughout its entire 2020-21 financial year, reads a press release.

The Emirates Group posted a loss of $6 billion for the financial year ended on March 31, 2021, compared with a $456 million profit for the last financial year. The Group’s revenue was $9.7 billion, a decline of 66 percent over last year’s results.

Emirates airline is the main concern of the group. Due to ongoing pandemic-related flight and travel restrictions, it reported a loss of $5.5 billion after last year’s $288 million profit and a negative profit margin of 65.6 percent.

Emirates’ total passenger and cargo capacity declined by 58 percent due to pandemic related flight and travel restrictions including a complete suspension of commercial passenger services for nearly eight weeks as directed by the UAE government from March 25 2020. Emirates’ total revenue for the financial year declined 66 percent to $8.4 billion.

Emirates carried 6.6 million passengers (down 88 percent) in 2020-21, with seat capacity down by 83 percent. From zero scheduled passenger flights at the start of the financial year to operations in over 120 destinations by March 31, 2021.

Emirates SkyCargo, the freighter division of Emirates, put in a stellar performance by rapidly responding to new demand in a changing global marketplace, contributing to 60 percent of the airline’s total transport revenue.

With the strong demand for air freight throughout the year, Emirates’ cargo division reported a revenue of $4.7 billion, an increase of 53 percent over last year.

Another concern for Emirates Group is that dnata recorded a loss of $496 million for the first time.

With reduced flight and travel activity across the world, dnata's total revenue decreased by 62 percent to $1.5 billion.