Dnata CEO Steve Allen reveals the airport and travel services growth after a successful H1-2024.

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00:00We've had an incredibly successful first half of the year. We've breached the 10 billion

00:17dirham revenue mark for the first time ever, which is fantastic, with an 11% growth versus

00:24last year on our top line, which demonstrates a real commitment to growth, I think, across

00:29not just in Dubai, but across the world. And an EBITDA sort of growth of about 16%, which

00:35again, you know, reflects the underlying operating profit that we're driving is great and we're

00:42moving forward. We decided to take some provisions in some of our businesses, international businesses,

00:48which mean that we're slightly below where we were this time last year, from a profit

00:52before tax perspective. And of course, this year is the first year that we'll have corporation

00:57tax here in the UAE. So we'll absorb that 9% in our profit after tax numbers. But overall,

01:04you know, our story is about continued growth, continued investment, and really pleased with

01:10the first half of the year.

01:17So the star has been cargo. I mean, the world cargo market is up about 9% on where it was

01:24this time last year. And in fact, for us, it's 18% up. So we are seeing significant

01:30growth on the cargo side. That's globally, I could pinpoint places like the UK, in particular,

01:38has been very strong for us from a cargo perspective. Netherlands, and so Europe has been strong.

01:44But here in Dubai, I think we've really seen the biggest growth. And we've seen trade coming

01:50in east to west, north to south. But also with the growth of Dubai itself, cargo reaching

01:56Dubai as its ultimate destination has been, you know, a major boost for us.

02:06Airport services, again, the growth overall of the aviation markets around 7%. And we're

02:11well in line with that. We're very pleased that we continue to expand our overseas business.

02:19We've had to go ahead to now operate in Rome Fiumicino Airport, which is a massive investment

02:24for us, a €20 million investment coming our way. And that will be a major growth location

02:30for us, one of our biggest overseas airports. We've also expanded in the US into Raleigh-Durham,

02:38which, you know, every new airport, we have over 20 airports in the US now. So that's

02:43continued to expand our portfolio. And we have some other exciting news in the second

02:47half of the year.

02:52Catering point of view, catering volumes are up, you know, because the number of meals

02:56people consume is in line really with the passenger growth. So 7% passenger growth overall

03:01in the market, and we're falling into line with that. But the exciting part is our retail

03:06business, which is our new business line that we've sort of developed over the last

03:10five years. This is the onboard selling that we do on a number of our customer carriers,

03:17including Jetstar, Air Arabia, EasyJet. That business has grown much faster than even the

03:23catering, the traditional catering business. And we see that as a real sense of a new business

03:29starting to take shape and grow.

03:35On the travel side, out of the Middle East, you know, travel, and particularly Dubai,

03:41travel, you know, with the growth of Dubai, travel continues to grow. But also, you know,

03:46I think travel is number three on the list of what people like to spend their money on

03:51right now if it comes after housing and food. So it's still right up there. Post pandemic,

03:57people have really got the itch to travel. And so we're seeing that in the growth of

04:01all of our travel businesses, and both on the leisure and on the corporate side.

04:07It's a relatively new concept where an airline will outsource everything on board, everything

04:13they sell on board to a service provider like Donata. So we do the ordering, the stock taking,

04:20the menus, the training of the cabin crew, the point of sale machines. We collect the

04:26money and then effectively play a profit share back to the airline. And that is really

04:31a full outsourcing of that onboard product. There's nobody really in the world apart from

04:34Donata that does it to the scale that we do. And what we've seen is an extremely successful

04:40outcome of that. So for example, you know, passengers at one of our airlines used to

04:44spend around 42 cents a seat, and they're now spending one pound per seat. So we've

04:51managed to more than double the sales since we've taken over. And the critical part about

04:57it is what you do with the data. So it's not personal data, but it's saying, what does

05:01the average passenger consume on a flight from, say, Dubai to Karachi on a Monday morning?

05:10You know, versus what does somebody consume on a flight from London to Paris on a Friday

05:16afternoon? And if you can really target exactly what they're going to be eating, drinking,

05:21buying, and load that on the aircraft, then you can really up the revenue per passenger.

05:27But also you can make it better for the passengers because the stock doesn't run out. You know,

05:32we've all been on aircraft where we've said, oh, I'd really like a, you know, a sandwich

05:36and they say, oh, sorry, but we don't have any sandwiches left. Well, now with that data,

05:40we can really target what people want. The low cost and the ultra low cost carriers.

05:45But, you know, I can see this is such a successful model. We're now starting to talk to other

05:49carriers about maybe in the economy cabins that we could start to deliver a sort of a

05:54more buy on board type products and they'll obviously make the decision themselves.

06:02It looks like, you know, passenger demand is going to continue. The growth story is

06:06going to continue. The cargo story we think will continue also. And so second half of

06:13the year, we're looking at extremely positive sort of progression from where we are now.

06:18And hopefully by the end of the year, we'll be hitting record numbers in terms of the

06:23top line and indeed profitability. So very, very positive. Obviously, it's not without

06:28its headwinds. So, you know, we've still got the unfortunate wars going on in the Middle

06:34East and in Ukraine, which we'll have to navigate. And of course, I think this year has been

06:41the year where there's been the most elections ever in the democratic world. And of course,

06:46some big recent elections may impact on, you know, trade and, you know, the sort of the

06:52globalisation. And we're going to have to adapt to that. But we're very lucky because

06:57we're globally diverse, where there are some wins in some areas, there's some losses in

07:02others. Overall, we win.

07:05It has slightly, yes. I mean, obviously, there's a headwind, you know, when you think of places,

07:14we've got big operations in Iraq and in Jordan, where airlines have had to periodically stop

07:20flying, and that impacts on us. But overall, I think on balance, those are relatively small

07:27parts of our business, and we've been able to adapt to those. Certainly, what it has

07:32done is forced more air cargo or resulted in more air cargo, because some of the shipping

07:37lanes have been closed. And that has worked to our benefit. So overall, I think, you know,

07:44it's probably neutral, but certainly something that we have to consider every day, not just

07:49for our business, but for the people that are working in those locations.

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