Dnata’s travel division contributed $420 million to the half-year revenue of parent company Emirates Group.
This represented a 3% rise from the same six month period to September last year for the business which runs UK brands such as Global Travel Group, Gold Medal, Imagine Cruising and Travelbag.
The division’s underlying net sales remained stable at $1.5 billion.
“This was a good performance in the face of increased competition and a challenging landscape,” the company said.
“The division’s Middle East corporate business secured significant new accounts, and its newly launched bedbank – Yalago – began trading with third parties.
“Australia was a new market for cruise, and has already delivered a strong performance with growth continuing across this segment.”
It added: “dnata’s travel division continues to build a strong management team with key personnel changes geared to lead the business and extract synergies across its extensive portfolio of travel brands.”
No further breakdown for dnata travel was given as Emirates Group reported a 77% rebound in half year net profits to $631 million.
However, the overall profit for dnata was up by 20% to $180 million.
Emirates Airline carried 29.2 million passengers between April 1 and September 30, up 4% from the same period last year, with net profit more than doubling to $452 million on revenue up 6% $12.1 billion.
The improved group result was attributed to “capacity optimisation and efficiency initiatives across the company, steady business growth, and a more favourable foreign exchange situation compared to the same period last year”.
Group chairman and chief executive, Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, said: “Our margins continue to face strong downward pressure from increased competition, oil prices have risen, and we still face weak economic and uncertain political realities in many parts of the world.
“Yet, the group has improved revenue and profit performance. This speaks to the resilience of our business model, and the agility of our people.
“The easing of the strong US dollar against other major currencies helped our profitability.
“We are also seeing the benefit from various initiatives across the company to enhance our capability and efficiency with new technologies and new ways of working.
“Moving forward, we will continue to keep a careful eye on costs while investing to grow our business and provide our customers with world-class products and services.”
Staff numbers fell by 3% in the six months to 102,669 “largely as a result of natural attrition together with a slower pace of recruitment, as various parts of the business adopted new technologies, streamlined business processes and re-allocated resources”.