Day: April 28, 2022

Brussels, dnata, a leading global air and travel services provider, and Qatar Airways Cargo, the world’s leading air cargo carrier, have extended their partnership in Belgium. The multi-year extension of the contract will see dnata continue to deliver a range of cargo handling and road feeder services for the airline from its state-of-the-art facility at Brussels Airport (BRU).

Qatar Airways Cargo currently operates a mix of 15 freighter and passenger flights each week to and from the Belgian capital. In 2021, dnata handled 25% more cargo for the airline at BRU than in the previous year.

Stef Vanbinst, Managing Director of dnata Belgium, said: “We are proud to have earned the trust and loyalty of Qatar Airways Cargo with our reliable and safe services. We continue to invest in our operations to consistently provide world-class quality to the airline and its customers.”

dnata entered the Belgian cargo market in 2019, substantially increasing cargo capacity in the Benelux states. Since then, it has more than doubled the size of its advanced cargo centre which now covers an area of 7,000 m². dnata has also been operating the Animal Care & Inspection Centre offering a top-notch, 2,000 m² facility for the handling of live animals at BRU.

In addition to expanding its operations, dnata has invested in equipment and technologies, including an Elevating Transfer Vehicle (ETV) system. In 2021 dnata handled 80,000 tonnes of cargo with a team of 120 highly trained employees in Brussels.

In recent years, dnata has made significant investments in advanced infrastructure to enhance its cargo offering. This included the opening of new, state-of-the-art cargo facilities in London, Manchester (UK), Karachi and Lahore (Pakistan), and additional cargo capacity and infrastructure in Brussels (Belgium), Sydney (Australia) and Toronto (Canada). Most recently, dnata has announced that it would invest over €200 million in its operations in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) and operate one of the world’s largest and most advanced cargo facilities at Schiphol Airport.

As one of the world’s leading air services providers, dnata currently provides ground handling, cargo, catering and retail services at over 120 airports in 19 countries.

Source: Dubai National Air Travel Agency

DUBAI, Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company PJSC (EITC) announced its financial results for the quarter-ended 31 March 2022.

Revenues grew 8.5% to AED 3,128 million. Mobile service revenues continued their recovery: revenues increased 6.9% to AED 1,402 million while handset sales generated AED 216 million in revenues. Fixed services revenues jumped 22.8% to AED 815 millionon sustained demand from consumer and enterprise customers. In aggregate, service revenues increased 12.2% to AED 2,217 million.

EBITDA increased by 13.3% year-over-year to AED 1,269 million. This improvement was mainly driven by higher service revenues. Given mobile and fixed services’ higher profitability, EBITDA margins expanded by 170bp to 40.6%.

Net Profit jumped 21% to AED 311 million. The impact of higher EBITDA was partially offset by increased depreciation charges triggered by our infrastructure investment.

Capex spend moderated to AED 305 million on a capital intensity of 9.7%. This reflects the usual seasonality as most of the Capex spend is skewed towards the second half of the year. More importantly, capex profile is beginning to normalize following two consecutive years of high capital intensity. Operating free cash flow (EBITDA – Capex) increased by 75% to AED 964 million.

Focused commercial initiatives drove a 10.4% growth in mobile customers. EITC ended the quarter with 7.5 million subscribers on healthy net-additions across the postpaid and prepaid segments. It delivered a third consecutive quarter of net-additions on the postpaid segment which grew to 1.4 million customers. Prepaid customer base increased to 6.1 million thanks to targeted offers, brisk tourism activity and continued improvement in the economic environment.

Consumer broadband offering remains extremely attractive. It attracted 48,000 new customers (Q1’21: 13,000) and ended the quarter with 439,000 broadband customers. This represents a 76.7% increase year-over-year. Again, our commercial initiatives across various product categories and the disciplined execution of our broadband strategy helped drive another quarter of solid performance.

Fahad Al Hassawi, CEO said: “Our Q1’22 results confirm our recovery trajectory is on a sustainable path. The COVID-19 impact is phasing out. We continued to experience increased mobility and a general improvement in the economic environment. We also continued our efforts to deploy our innovative portfolio of products and services and to implement the transformation of the Company. Our considerable infrastructure investment allows us to continue innovating and improve customer experience.,, ”More importantly, it sets the foundations for continued strong performance. Furthermore, this quarter’s performance validates our strategy. My team is focused on growth. We are committed to re-invigorating our core mobile and fixed operations while pursuing modernization of our infrastructure. We will continue to work to maintain this positive commercial momentum throughout 2022,” he added.

Source: Emirates News Agency

ABU DHABI, The Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (ADDED) has signed an agreement with First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB), Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD), and Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) to provide “easy payment plan” service, enabling credit card holders issued by these banks to pay the charges for the services provided by ADDED in instalments ranging from 3 to 12 months.

ADDED’s recent initiatives to enhance the business ecosystem included a reduction of requirements to set up business by 71.3 percent, and fees to issue and renew licences were reduced by over 94 percent as part of “Investor Journey” programme. It aims to improve the ease of doing business and strengthen Abu Dhabi’s status as a preferred global destination for business and investments.

Ibrahim Al Mosa, Executive Director of Corporate Support Services Sector at ADDED, said, “We are committed to providing the best conditions for our customers and business community in Abu Dhabi. We have signed these agreements with leading UAE banks and will enlarge the base of banks providing this service.”

“Liquidity management is very important to businesses and easy payment plans provide a good opportunity to business owners, particularly micro and small enterprises, to settle fees of commercial and industrial licences and other ADDED’s services in instalments,” Al Mosa added.

The easy payment plan enables ADDED’s customers to pay fees of issuing and renewing commercial and industrial licences and other services by credit cards in ADDED centres or digital channels and then dividing them into instalments ranging from 3 to 12 months with a minimum value of AED1,000.

Source: Emirates News Agency