While dnata returned to profitability in its last financial year of 2021-22 after a heavy loss at the peak of the Covid impact, there are inflation headwinds and cost pressures in many markets today, and the handler had its share of operational and staffing issues in 2022.
“The challenge has been mainly in the developed markets. In regions like the US, UK, Europe and Australia, where there were [staff] shortages, ramping up operations has been a real challenge,” said Allen. “And that’s led to general wage inflation in all those locations but also specifically for us as a business.
“It’s meant that minimum wages have all increased double-digit numbers in all those markets, and we’ve had to attract new talent by some significant wage inflation,” explained Allen. “On top of that, in this year of recovery, you’ve got start-up costs, recruitment costs, training costs, and you’ve got the time it takes to do on-job training and shadowing.
“In many cases, we were having to move labour around between airports to support those where there were shortfalls in staff,” said Allen, and there were costs associated with that, too. This occurred mostly at some UK and US locations but has mainly ended for now.
