Flydubai Profit Soars By 47%

Flydubai today announced full-year 2013 net profit of Dhs222.8 million, an increase of 47 per cent compared to 2012.

The government-owned airline announced revenues of Dhs3.7 billion for the full year 2013.

HH Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman of flydubai, said: “The increase in profitability and focus on ensuring the efficiency of our operations, in spite of a complex operating environment, demonstrates the strength of our business model.”

Continued demand for travel within a five-hour flying radius of Dubai resulted in an increase in passenger numbers to 6.82 million a 38 per cent increase compared to 2012.

The airline, which operates an average of 1,100 flights a week, launched 17 new routes during 2013 bringing the network to 66 destinations.

Saj Ahmad, head of consulting at Strategic Aero Research, commented: “Flydubai’s growth demonstrates to good effect why low cost fares without the gimmickry of full service airlines continues to pull in passengers, despite the regional turmoil seen in places like Libya, Egypt and Syria.

“In hedging their fuel bills for the year, you can see that flydubai is already pacing itself for future expansion – any threat of market saturation or too much competition is badly overplayed.

“If anything, demand in the GCC for air travel continues to increase as the proliferation of new routes, access and easier tourism visa’s gives customers more incentive to fly.

“The airline still has a lot of route network development to do in order to match the number of destinations served by Air Arabia, but flydubai has amassed as many 737-800s in five years as Air Arabia has with A320s in double that time.”