Dubai’s Emirates Airline posted 13 per cent increase in record half-year profits after tax to Dh9.9 billion ($2.7 billion) amid “strong and sustained” travel demand across regions that withstood geopolitical turbulence and macroeconomic uncertainty.
The airline recorded revenue of Dh65.6 billion, up six per cent year on year, on “unabated” travel demand, especially for premium cabins, it said in a statement on Thursday. Emirates’ fiscal year ends in March.
Emirates “maintained its position as the world’s most profitable airline for the period, thanks to strong demand and growing customer preference for our premium products and services”, said Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed, chairman and chief executive of Emirates Airline and group.
“Global demand for air transport and travel services has been buoyant, despite geopolitical events and economic concerns in some markets. We expect this demand resilience to continue for the rest of 2025-26.”
Emirates expects to increase its capacity to grow revenue as new Airbus A350 wide-body aircraft join its fleet and new dnata facilities open, he added.
Emirates Group posted 13 per cent increase in half-year profits after tax to Dh10.6 billion, marking its fourth consecutive year of record profitability for the half-year reporting period, Sheikh Ahmed said.
The group recorded revenue of Dh75.4 billion, up four per cent year on year, as the airline carried more passengers through its Dubai hub.
The state-owned airline benefitted from passenger flows through Dubai despite the aviation industry grappling with tensions in the Middle East and economic uncertainty arising from US President Donald Trump’s trade policies.
Dubai welcomed 13.95 million overnight visitors in the first nine months of the year, a five per cent increase from the same period in 2024, according to the latest data from the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism (DET).
The emirate has set a goal to exceed last year’s 18.7 million visitors who flocked to the city, Shahab Shayan of the DET said at the World Travel Market in London this week.
Dubai International Airport, Emirates’ home hub, handled 22.5 million passengers in the second quarter of 2025, an increase of 3.1 per cent over the same period last year.
To accommodate the anticipated future growth in passengers, Dubai is building a $35 billion terminal at its second airport, Al Maktoum International, which will become home to Emirates Airline’s operations by 2032.
Emirates, which has a fleet mix of Boeing 777, Airbus A380 and Airbus A350 aircraft, has more than 300 aircraft on its order book. Out of these, it has 170 of the Boeing 777-9 and 35 of the smaller 777-8 variant on order, making it the largest customer of the latest wide-body plane.
But the US plane-maker again postponed the jet programme to 2027, from its original 2020 schedule.
Aircraft delivery delays, backlogs into the next decade and plane makers’ reluctance to develop stretched versions of their largest models are restraining the airline’s growth plans, Emirates Airline president Tim Clark told The National this week.
Mr Clark does not know when he will receive his first plane.
“When they said they pushed it to 2027, that’s a 12-month period: Am I looking at the first quarter? Second quarter? Third quarter? Fourth quarter?” he said.
“It’s bad news for us. It’s seven years after we expected it to happen.”
