Emirates Airline Chairman: FY Fuel Costs Seen At About $2 Bln

Tuesday, May 01, 2012

DUBAI (Zawya Dow Jones)--The chairman of Dubai-based Emirates Airline said the carrier's performance in the fiscal year just finished was "positive", but soaring fuel prices took an almost $2 billion chunk from profits.

"For the full year 2011-2012, its going to be positive...we carried 35-37 million passengers, so its up on last year which was around 30-plus million," Seikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum told Zawya Dow Jones in an interview on the sidelines of a tourism event in Dubai on Tuesday.

"Fuel costs are now touching on 40%-43% of total costs, it is very close to $2 billion, it is not easy to mitigate this risk," he added.

The airline, whose financial year runs to Mar 31., posted a profit of 5.46 billion U.A.E. dirhams ($1.49 billion) in 2011.

-By Tahani Karrar-Lewsley, Dow Jones Newswires; +9714 446-1692; Tahani.Karrar@dowjones.com

Copyright (c) 2012 Dow Jones & Co.

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01-05-12 1244GMT