Emirates Becomes World’s Most Profitable Airline, Overtakes Delta

Delta Air Lines is no longer the world’s most profitable airline, and it’s not even United Airlines that has dethroned the carrier. Emirates Airline has just revealed its results for the 2024-2025 financial year, and they put the Dubai-based airline in the top spot.

Details of Emirates’ impressive financial results

Emirates Group has reported a record $6.2 billion profit, while Emirates Airline has reported a $5.8 billion profit (compared to $5.2 billion and $4.7 million last year, respectively), representing a 14.9% profit margin. Emirates Group also includes ground handling company dnata, though I’ll be focusing specifically on the carrier’s results.

To look at some of the key figures of Emirates’ performance compared to the previous year:

• Revenue increased by 6%, to $34.9 billion
• Passenger and cargo capacity increased by 4%, to 60 billion ATKMs
• Passengers carried was up by 3%, to 53.7 million
• Average load factor decreased by 1%, to 78.9%
• Passenger yield remained unchanged, at 10.0 cents per revenue passenger kilometer
• Operating costs increased by 4%, with the carrier’s fuel bill decreasing by 4%
• Emirates Group’s total workforce was increased by 9%, to 121,223 employees

Emirates is ending the financial year with its highest ever cash balance of $14.6 billion, up 13% from last year. Furthermore, Emirates Group has declared a dividend of $1.6 billion to its owner, Investment Corporation of Dubai.

Here’s how Emirates CEO Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum describes these results:

“For 2024-25, the Emirates Group has raised the bar to set new records for profit, revenue, and cash assets. Through the year, Emirates and dnata were able to move quickly to meet the strong demand for air transport services across markets and win over customers – thanks to our non-stop investments in our people, in building partnerships, and in delivering great products and services.”

“We enter the year ahead with excitement and optimism. Our excellent financial standing enables us to continue building on and scaling up from our successful business models. While some markets are jittery about trade and travel restrictions, volatility is not new in our industry. We simply adapt and navigate around these challenges.” 

“Emirates will strengthen our network connectivity with the expected delivery of 16 A350s and 4 Boeing 777 freighters in 2025-26, providing much-needed capacity to meet customer demand. Our retrofit programme will continue apace to provide our customers the latest Emirates products and a more consistent experience across our A380, 777 and A350 fleet.”

Emirates is now more profitable than Delta

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Emirates’ financial results this year is that the airline has overtaken Delta as the most profitable in the world.

When I write about the financial performance of the Gulf carriers, there are always questions about whether this is all just imaginary math, given that the Gulf carriers are state owned. After all, going back a decade, US airlines spent millions of dollars campaigning to convince us that these are all heavily subsidized airlines that light money on fire (they’ve since changed their tune).

Yes, these results are accurate, and they’re independently audited per international financial reporting standards. However, there’s no denying that the math on some things works differently for an airline like Emirates than many other airlines:

• Emirates has had easier access to attractive financing on account of being government owned, which has allowed the airline to become what it is
• Emirates largely has lower operating costs than other airlines, given that the airline essentially has the same owner as the airport, ground handlers, catering company, etc.

I do think Emirates is “legitimately” profitable, though of course it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison to US airlines in terms of revenue vs. costs. The problem with the A380 for most airlines is that they haven’t been able to scale their operations in a way that works. Emirates has been able to scale its route network unlike any other airline.

The A380 was quite literally created for Emirates’ business model, it’s just a shame that other airlines couldn’t make it work in the same way. One has to wonder what Emirates will look like starting in the mid-2030s, when the A380 is no longer in service.

For that matter, I think it’s worth pointing out that even the most profitable US airlines are only sort of profitable in terms of transporting passengers. For example, when you look at the financial results of carriers like American, Delta, and United, you’ll find that the airlines largely don’t actually make money transporting passengers, but rather earn much of their profits through their frequent flyer programs and other means. They’re lucky to breakeven in terms of the cost per air seat mile vs. the revenue per air seat mile.

Emirates is obviously just much more efficient — labor costs are lower, the airline is flying much larger planes with lower per seat operating costs, operating flights in the Middle East is cheaper, etc.

Bottom line

Emirates has reported a record profit for the past financial year, which is its third consecutive year of record profits. What’s particularly remarkable this time around is that Emirates has overtaken Delta as the world’s most profitable airline.

It’s great to see Emirates continuing to succeed with its business model. The airline has scaled operations with the A380 in a way that no other airline has, and that’s a key part of the carrier’s success.

What do you make of Emirates’ financial results?