Dubai-based international airline Emirates said that it carried over 59 million passengers on around 192,000 flights, a media report said.

"We had our challenges in 2018, however we continued to maximise opportunities by deploying our capacity to best serve customer demand, keeping a close watch on our costs, utilising technology to improve business performance, as well as developing more customer-centric products and services to provide our passengers with greater choice,” Sir Tim Clark, president of Emirates Airline was quoted as saying by state-run news agency Wam.

“Our customers remain at the heart of everything we do, and our continual investments in the business will be the foundation on which we will build our future growth and continue to deliver solid results," he added.

Recent data revealed that Emirates operated over 192,000 flights, with its fleet of 274 aircraft travelling more than 908 million kilometres around the globe in 2018. The year began with Emirates setting out on a $150 million programme to refurbish its Boeing 777-200LR fleet. These 10 newly refurbished aircraft brought airier and more spacious cabins throughout the aircraft. Emirates is now planning for the next generation cabin design of its Boeing 777X programme.

In January, the airline also announced a $16 billion deal for 36 additional Airbus A380 aircraft, to be delivered to Emirates from 2020 onwards. Emirates also expanded the number of cities served by its popular A380 aircraft to 50 destinations with recent launch of scheduled services to Hamburg and Osaka. The airline also led one-off A380 services to five cities: Beirut, Muscat, Islamabad, Riyadh and Accra, and temporary services to St. Petersburg.

As the airline received new aircraft, four new routes were launched, frequencies were added to 20 destinations, and capacity to eight cities was upgraded. Emirates expanded its UK footprint with the launch of services to London Stansted and Edinburgh, and enhanced long-haul connectivity to South America with the launch of flights to Santiago de Chile. The airline also launched Dubai-Bali-Auckland services, which has become the only year around non-stop daily flight between Bali and Auckland.

Emirates also extended its partnership with flydubai to expand access to its customers to a combined network of 206 unique points, and over one million passengers have booked their travel on combined Emirates and flydubai itineraries as a result.

During the year Emirates also announced a new codeshare agreement with Jetstar Pacific and enhanced its commercial strategic partnership with South African Airways. Emirates hit two fleet milestones in 2018, celebrating 10 years of A380 operations in August, and taking delivery of its last Boeing 777-300ER, its 146th in December.