Cairo ranked 1st in number of passengers; 2nd in air freight
By mohamed Attia
A great boom is being witnessed in the civil aviation sector in recent months based on the directives of Minister of Civil Aviation Mohamed Manar.
Egyptian airports, led by Eng. Mohamed Saeed Mahrous, Chairman of the Egyptian Holding Company for Airports and Air Navigation, Magdy Ishaq, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Cairo Airport Company, and Pilot Ahmed Mansour, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Egyptian Airports Company, achieved a great achievement at the level of the African continent in passenger and air freight traffic.
These achievements were embodied in the fact that Cairo International Airport topped the list issued by the Airports Council International (ACI) for the first ten African airports in terms of passenger traffic volume in 2021.
Cairo International Airport came in second place in the movement of cargo. Hurghada International Airport came in the fifth place while Sharm El-Sheikh airport came in the eighth place among the first ten African airports in terms of the number of passengers, according to the statistics of the Airports Council International.
For his part, Minister Manar congratulated all workers in the aviation sector for the achievement achieved on the level of the African continent, expressing his appreciation for their great efforts that contributed to making this achievement despite the difficult conditions that the air transport industry experienced due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Minister Manar pointed out that the Egyptian airport system is witnessing a great development with the addition of new airports, modernisation of the infrastructure, raising the efficiency of the current airports, strengthening the security and safety system at all airports, developing the cargo village and modernising the air cargo fleet.
The minister also stressed that the success of 11 Egyptian airports in obtaining and renewing the certificate of safe health travel from the International Airports Council is a great success that has enhanced confidence in the system of procedures applied in Egyptian airports, which contributed to the flow of air and tourist traffic to Egypt and strengthened its position on the map of the world’s favorite tourist destinations.
Cairo International Airport achieved the “first place” under the leadership of Ishaq, President of Cairo Airport Company in Africa, with a number of passengers that amounted to 11.3 million passengers, surpassing the airports of South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Morocco and Kenya, while Hurghada International Airport came in the fifth place with a number of passengers that reached 4.9 million passengers and Sharm El-Sheikh International Airport came in eighth place on the list with 4.5 million passengers.
In the field of air freight, Cairo airport came in second place in Africa in terms of cargo movement, as 333,536 tons of goods were transported, after Jomo Kenyatta airport in Kenya, which came in the first place.
The statistics of the Airports Council International revealed that the total passenger and freight movement during 2021 in African airports amounted to 114.8 million passengers, an increase of about 49.4 percent over 2020, and the air freight movement amounted to 2.2 million tons of goods, an increase of 11.6 per cent over the same period.
The number of passengers carried around the world reached 4.6 billion in 2021, an increase of 28.4 per cent over the year 2020, and the global air cargo movement amounted to 125.3 million tons of goods, an increase of 15.4 per cent over the same period.
