Emirates has scrapped its previous earnings targets and would be happy to break even this financial year if the conflict with Iran continues, its president Tim Clark has said.
The airline has restored about 80 per cent of its pre-conflict services and its planes are three-quarters full on average, with some flights from London “bursting at the seams”, Mr Clark told the Financial Times.
Emirates reported a profit of $6.3 billion for the fiscal year that ended in March, a figure Mr Clark said would have been $7 billion without the airspace closure and grounding of planes in March. The Iran war broke out on February 28.
The carrier breaking even by March 31, 2027, would be “OK” as long as it stayed cash-positive, Mr Clark said.
About 40,000 people a day are transferring through Dubai's airport, down from roughly 100,000 before the conflict but “growing at pace”, he said. The return of passengers has been faster than expected.
“I think people can see what we're doing, can see that it's OK to transit Dubai and go on to all the other places,” he said.
Speaking ahead of the Berlin Airshow earlier this week, Mr Clark also said Emirates airline has no plans to cut capacity despite financial pressures caused by the war.
The airline is taking precautions such as carrying extra fuel, he said. “We have no intention of cutting back,” Mr Clark said.
Travel insurance plans
The airline is also working with insurance companies to roll out a “reasonably priced” product to encourage more people to fly into or through Dubai.
Under the plan, Emirates would fly stranded passengers home, using other airlines if needed, guaranteeing “we would get you back irrespective [of whether it's] on Emirates or not”, Mr Clark told the FT.
“I think one of the big concerns is that if they get caught overseas and they can't get back,” he added.
Mr Clark said that Dubai had “learnt a lot” from last year's 12-day Iran-Israel war and was “very capable of making the call whether it's safe to operate”.
“It was clear that they had a handle on this … so we were able to operate the flights in narrow air corridors patrolled by military jets,” he said.
