UAE national carrier Etihad Airways has registered its third consecutive year of net profit which soared to $62 million, up 48 per cent when compared to the previous year.

The Abu Dhabi-based carrier on Thursday said its revenue increased by 27 per cent to $6.1 billion  when compared to 4.8 billion the year before helped byu a surge in passenger numbers.

Etihad flew 11.5 million passengers in 2013, up 12 per cent compared to 10.3 million the previous year.

The revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) – measuring passenger journeys - increased by 16 per cent to 55.5 billion (47.7 billion), while Available Seat Kilometres (ASKs) – representing capacity - grew by 17 per cent to 71.1 billion (61 billion), stated the Etihad in its statement.

The record performance also saw earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) up 22 per cent to $208 million and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation and rentals (ebitdar) up 30 per cent to $979 million, a margin of 16 per cent of total revenues.

This marked the third successive year of net profitability, in the airline’s tenth year of operation.

Commenting on its performance, president and CEO James Hogan said:"It is another important step forward in our journey as a growing, commercially successful business.  We have hit every financial target for each of the last seven years, bringing sustainable profitability to a business which has grown from just $300 million in revenues in 2005 to over $6 billion today."

"We have delivered that through our unique strategy, which has seen us combine industry-leading organic growth with wide-ranging partnerships and minority equity investments in strategically important carriers around the world," stated Hogan.

"This journey has seen us evolve from a highly successful airline into a growing aviation and travel group, with the infrastructure and strategy to develop even further in our second decade," he observed.

“We are particularly pleased to deliver a return for our shareholder, while also playing a major role in the development of trade and tourism within the emirate of Abu Dhabi,” added Hogan.

These figures reflected strong growth in passenger traffic volumes, in a year when Etihad  added six new destinations – Washington DC, Amsterdam, Sao Paulo, Belgrade, Ho Chi Minh City and Sana’a - and increased capacity on 18 existing routes, stated the Abu Dhabi airline.

At year’s end, the average network-wide seat load factor was 78 per cent, unchanged from 2012, it added.

Etihad announced nine new destinations for 2014 – the US cities of Los Angeles and Dallas-Fort Worth, the European gateways of Rome and Zurich, Jaipur in India, Perth in Western Australia, Phuket in Thailand, Medina in Saudi Arabia and Yerevan in Armenia.  

A key driver of Etihad Airways’ growth in 2013 was its partnership strategy, based on wide-ranging codeshares and its unique approach of minority equity investments in strategically important airlines, said Hogan.

This strategy delivered revenues of $820 million in 2013, up 30 per cent ($629 million), and represented 21 per cent of total passenger revenues for Etihad Airways.

“Our codeshare partnerships have been an important part of our business performance for the last seven years.  But it is our equity investments which are really taking off now, allowing us to build integrated networks and schedules, develop common products and services and most importantly, identify business and cost synergies," stated Hogan.

"These synergies are outstanding.  Our joint purchasing taskforces are delivering real and significant savings across all equity alliance members, giving each of us real competitive advantage through lower unit costs,” he added.-TradeArabia News Service