Flights to and from Dubai\u2019s main airport, the world\u2019s busiest international hub, have been curtailed since Iran\u2019s retaliatory attacks began on February 28.<\/p>\n
The United Arab Emirates, which hosts US troops, has borne the brunt of Iranian strikes with more than 2800 drone and missile attacks reported but most of them intercepted.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn February 28, military activity massively disrupted global commercial air traffic in the Gulf region, including in the UAE,\u201d the annual report said.<\/p>\n
Using safe corridors, flights resumed on March 2 and Emirates was flying 58% of its passenger capacity to 122 destinations by the end of the month.<\/p>\n
Passenger numbers slipped 1% to 53.2 million over the financial year, Emirates said. <\/p>\n
The group paid a dividend of US$1b to its owner, the Investment Corporation of Dubai.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope for a clear resolution to the hostilities soon, and a return to market stability. But in the meantime, we are not sitting on our hands,\u201d Sheikh Ahmed said.<\/p>\n
He said Emirates was \u201cwell-hedged\u201d on fuel costs until 2028-29, providing protection from the surge in oil prices triggered by the war.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have worked with our suppliers to secure the volumes required to support our current operations and our scaling-up to pre-disruption levels,\u201d the Emirates chief said.<\/p>\n
The war has posed the biggest challenge for Emirates since the pandemic, when it grounded its fleet and posted a US$5.5b loss in 2020-21.<\/p>\n
The UAE was targeted by drones and missiles for the first time in more than a month this week, with an oil facility set on fire. A UAE oil tanker was also hit by drones in the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Dubai Airports reported a 66% slump in March passenger traffic year-on-year. Quarterly traffic was down 21% to 18.6 million in January-March.<\/p>\n
Emirates this week said it had rebuilt 96% of its global network and was travelling at 75% of its pre-disruption capacity.<\/p>\n
An Emirates spokesman on Thursday said New Zealand capacity was moving strongly.<\/p>\n
He said Christchurch was continuing to provide daily flights to Dubai via Sydney, and Auckland flights were operating four days a week. <\/p>\n
\u2013 AFP<\/p>\n
Additional reporting: NZ Herald<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Flights to and from Dubai\u2019s main airport, the world\u2019s busiest international hub, have been curtailed since Iran\u2019s retaliatory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3589,2681,696,4765,8613,138,127,22048,4225,3806,95658,6562,71,62035,209,10110,111,139,69,9324,30619,1436,2848,1458,28050,215201,6149,102],"class_list":["post-419021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-3589","tag-airport","tag-announced","tag-annual","tag-billion","tag-business","tag-despite","tag-disruption","tag-dubai","tag-east","tag-emirates","tag-flights","tag-from","tag-grounded","tag-group","tag-middle","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-profits","tag-repeatedly","tag-rise","tag-severe","tag-targeted","tag-thursday","tag-us57","tag-war","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}