Qatar Airways' net profit jumps 28% as company expects strong demand to continue
聽State-owned Qatar Airways posted an annual net profit of a record 7.8 billion riyals ($2.1 billion) for the 2024 financial year ended March 31, up 28% from a year earlier, the company said on Monday, and expects strong demand ahead.
Demand from the Gulf has defied a global slowdown, with regional airlines聽聽steady bookings even as trade tensions, currency swings and recession fears weigh on key Western markets.
The Reuters Tariff Watch newsletter is your daily guide to the latest global trade and tariff news.聽Sign up聽
CEO Badr Mohammed Al-Meer said the company had established strategic partnerships across the industry to enable it to "remain agile in the face of ever-shifting world events, whether political, economic or environmental."
"Our best year commercially in the airline's history was 2024 and we fully expect demand in 2025 to remain as strong," Al-Meer said in a statement.
Revenue and other operating income rose over 6% to 86 billion riyals for the 12 months ended March 31. The airline carried just over 43 million passengers over the year, up 7.8% year-on-year.
Network capacity grew by 4% compared to the previous financial year
Over the past year, Qatar Airways has acquired a 25% stake in聽聽and a 25% stake in South Africa-based regional carrier聽.
It placed an聽聽last week for 160 Boeing聽聽777X and 787 planes with GE Aerospace engines worth $96 billion, the largest ever widebody deal for the companies, during U.S. President Donald Trump's聽聽to Qatar.
Qatar Airways saw聽聽in passenger numbers from April 2024 until January this year, a senior executive told Reuters in March, up 9% across its network.
The video player is currently playing an ad. You can skip the ad in 5 sec with a mouse or keyboard
Reporting by Andrew Mills and Federico Maccioni; Editing by David Holmes and Rachna Uppal