By :Mohamed Attia
EgyptAir is setting out a plan to increase its aircraft fleet and double its weekly flights over the coming five years.
The national air carrier headed by pilot Amr Abul-Enein and under the directives of Minister of Civil Aviation Mohamed Manar operates weekly flights amounting to 385.
It is also planned that the EgyptAir network will reach 96 cities in 2026 instead of 65 cities currently, with an increase of 47 per cent.
The company also plans to increase its fleet for most wide-middle models through negotiations with manufacturers and renters to meet their needs so that the company can open new destinations in Africa, the US and the Far East.
The company also decided to operate the Dhaka line in Bangladesh in December 2021, Kinshasa in March 2022 and Dublin in Ireland in June 2022.
The company also completed the establishment of a new low-cost activity belonging to EgyptAir targeting new segments of Egyptians and foreigners and covering new points in the network.
For his part, Chairman of EgyptAir Airlines Amr Nabil confirmed that the company is always keen to upgrade all its activities and services to serve the Egyptian economy.
He indicated that the company has in mind a plan to modernise the air cargo fleet in addition to modernising the fleet of passenger planes through a specific plan in expanding the movement of goods by air by increasing the number of cargo planes or exploiting the spaces available on passenger planes to meet the growing demand for Egyptian exports.
He added that during the outbreak of the coronavirus, air freight activity witnessed a remarkable increase compared to before the pandemic, as Egyptian exports, especially agricultural crops of fruits and vegetables, were a great demand in the European market and the Far East.
“We did not stop at this point. Rather, the great success achieved by the air freight activity during the coronavirus pandemic prompted us to think of a new strategy based on the presence of a large fleet for air freight only and the expansion of the volume of activity.“
Pilot Nabil also reviewed some statistics on air cargo activity, which confirm EgyptAir’s tendency to expand in this activity, as the total number of cargo flights to EgyptAir during the fiscal year 2020/2021 amounted to about 1,231 flights, an increase of 23 per cent over the number of flights during the fiscal year 2019/2020.
The total tonnage transported in the fiscal year 2020/2021 amounted to approximately 93,000 tonnes, an increase of 40 percent over the volume of tonnage transported in 2019/2020.
Passenger planes were exploited during the period of closure of the Egyptian airspace from March 19, 2020 until July 1, 2020, by modifying those planes and making maximum use of the cabin after taking the necessary approvals from the authorities, in order to transport non-flammable cargo.
He pointed out that the report of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) indicated that air cargo activity currently represents 30 per cent of air traffic after it represented from 10 to 15 percent before the coronavirus pandemic.
Regarding the field of activating the incoming foreign tourism movement to Egypt, pilot Nabil added that, in co-operation between the Ministries of Civil Aviation and Tourism and Antiquities, an initiative was launched to integrate beach and recreational tourism with the cultural tourism product by linking the Nile Valley cities with the Egyptian tourist cities to facilitate the process for tourists to undertake beach and cultural tourism in one programme.
He added that EgyptAir operated the Luxor/London line after a hiatus of years, as well as the Luxor/Madrid, Prague/Hurghada and Budapest/Hurghada lines to connect the European capitals with the tourist cities directly.
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