Will Emirates overtake Qantas to become Australia’s biggest international airline? The Middle Eastern carrier certainly has that ambition.
As we come to the end of the financial year, a lot of businesses will be looking back on a tough year and hoping for a better one ahead. Airlines are among those feeling nervous about what the future holds, with a weak global economy and high fuel prices biting into profits.
One airline cruising at high altitude is Emirates, which continues to grow rapidly. The United Arab Emirates airline, which works on a financial year ending in March, recently reported a net profit of $US629 million – its 24th consecutive year of profit. Despite “a difficult operating environment”, the airline added 11 destinations, bought 22 aircraft and invested $US3.8 billion in product developments over the course of the year.
Emirates is already the world’s largest airline in terms of international RPKs, the number of kilometres flown by revenue-generating passengers, and is showing no signs of slowing. The carrier has an eye firmly on Australia, which is its second largest revenue-generating market (after the UAE and Gulf region).
“We’ve surpassed the UK and Germany [which] puts us in a very good place in terms of global presence with Emirates,” says the vice-president Australasia of Emirates, Barry Brown. ”It’s a very solid and important piece of revenue for the company.”
The Australian market is estimated to be worth more than $1 billion a year to the carrier and Brown says it is just getting started. Emirates operates… (click here to keep reading this article by Jane E. Fraser)
