Emirates soars to record profit despite Iran war grounding planes

May 7, 2026 adminsr

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Emirates reported record results despite the turmoil triggered by the war in the Middle East, which grounded part of its aircraft fleet during the final month of the financial year.

The Dubai-owned airline said it had faced “significant challenges” since the US-Israeli strikes on Iran that began on February 28 sparked a region-wide conflict that closed airspace and led to thousands of flights being cancelled.

Emirates said it had now restored about three-quarters of its pre-conflict flights, covering 96 per cent of worldwide destinations. The Dubai carrier also said it had sufficient fuel to restore its operations fully and insisted it was against any “knee-jerk cost control measures” to deal with a global jet fuel shortage.

Emirates reported a 7 per cent rise in pre-tax profits to a record $6.6bn in the 12 months to the end of March, buoyed by robust travel demand and a fleet of new aircraft. Revenues rose 3 per cent to $41bn, also a record for the company.

“The Emirates Group has navigated crises and disruptions before,” chair Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum said on Thursday. “These outstanding results, despite significant challenges in the last month of our financial year, reaffirm the strength and resilience of the Emirates Group’s business model.”

He added: “The Emirates Group enters 2026-27 with very strong cash reserves, which enable us to progress with our plans to strengthen our business without knee-jerk cost-control measures. Our aircraft deliveries and retrofit programme will continue apace, as well as our planned investments in new facilities and equipment.”

Emirates is privately held, and does not offer financial guidance for the coming year. Al Maktoum said the company’s “fundamentals are strong” and that its “proven business model is unchanged”. The company has not required financial injections from its owner during the conflict.

Other airlines have started cost-cutting or cancelling flights in the face of jet fuel prices that have doubled since the war started. Delta Air Lines will cut 3.5 per cent of its serviceswhile Lufthansa has cut 20,000 flights and pulled forward the closure of its regional airline.

In total, global airlines have cut about 2mn seats from their capacity for May, findings from aviation data group Cirium show.

Emirates’ passenger numbers fell fractionally during the year, down from 53.7mn to 53.2mn. Its load factor — a measure of how full its planes are — also slipped from 78.9 per cent to 78.4 per cent. Both figures were dragged down by the upheaval caused by the war.