From my cursory investigation into the report, the main things that pop up are:
- dnata saved The Emirates Group: EK made 1.3bn AED on 83.7bn (350m USD on 22.79bn USD) AED revenue, and dnata made 1.2bn AED on 12.2bn AED revenue (330m/3.27bn USD)
- a significant collapse in net margin for EK from 8.4% to 1.5% - that does not compare favorably with network carriers getting margins in the 10s, after tax
- passenger growth up, but yield down from 26.7 fils/km to 24.7 - 7.5% drop
- revenue on the face of it flat, but pax revenue flat, drop in cargo revenue and excess baggage revenue shows weakening EK revenue generation in transport operations
- revenue flat across most geographic sectors: Europe down 0.4% is explainable (can be attributed to GBP weakness given that's their primary market), but Africa down 4.4% looks like an issue that needs to be addressed; Americas up 3.3% but that remains to be seen if it is sustainable in the face of political events
- passengers up 8.1% but operating costs up only 7.7%: however, imho, all of the cost cutting can't mask the real issue, which is that operating lease costs are up 30% - from 8bn AED to 10.5bn AED (2.18bn USD to 2.86bn USD)
Basically all of their issues are stemming from the gamble on increased passenger growth going against them.
Employee costs were only up 3.3% but headcount increased by 5.8%, but all the cost cutting in the world won't stop lease liabilities piling up.
FX was expensive this year, but that is simply a hangover from GBP devaluation, imho.
And yes, no sale and leasebacks this year to make a dividend - I don't think they have any frames worth selling anymore.