Emirates remains confident of outlook despite rising fuel costs

Emirates stated it has yet to see a drop in demand after raising its fares in response to the surge in oil prices, but stated that rising fuel prices are a "worry" (AMEInfo, 17-Mar-2011). "What does the real damage with fuel is the volatility. It's these rapid changes that make it very difficult to run the business profitably, because obviously we forward sell our capacity and then if fuel shoots up it is hard to recover that. As fuel goes up we have to raise our fares," Emirates' senior VP commercial operations Richard Jewsburg said. He added that the carrier is optimistic that 2HFY2011 profits will be strong despite the challenges that the industry is facing. "We started the year with volcanoes, we've gone on to floods, wildfires, and we're finishing with a series of earthquakes and tsunamis. Plus you have the oil shock from the political unrest in North Africa," he said.