By Mohamed Attia
The air flow at Egyptian airports, headed by Chairman of the Egyptian Holding Company for Airports and Air Navigation Engineer Mohamed Saeed Mahrous, is witnessing a state of recovery during the current period, coinciding with the beginning of the summer and with the decline of the repercussions of the coronavirus.
A few days ago, Mersa Matrouh International Airport received the first flights of the airline Neos air coming from Malpensa airport in Milan, Italy, and it is scheduled that the number will reach 4 flights per week until the end of the summer tourist season.
After a 10-year hiatus, LOT Polish Airlines, the Polish national carrier, resumed its regular flights between Warsaw and Cairo airports, with 5 flights per week.
Hurghada International Airport also received the first Polish Ryanair Group flight from Wroclaw.
Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport received the first flights of Kuwait Airways, and Borg El Arab International Airport received the first flights of Barnes Airlines coming from Libya.
Luxor International Airport also received a flight from Madrid belonging to the Smartwings company, carrying 189 passengers.
Taba International Airport received the first plane coming from Katowice, carrying 190 Polish passengers, after a hiatus of more than two years. Luxor International Airport also received Galistair flights from Madrid with 179 passengers on board.
Borg El Arab International Airport also received the first flights of the Vueling airline coming from Orly Airport in Paris with 99 passengers on board.
Luxor International Airport also received the first Luxair flights from Luxembourg after a hiatus that lasted for several years. A weekly flight is scheduled to Luxor Airport.
Minister of Civil Aviation Mohamed Manar and Minister of Tourism Khaled El-Anani held an extensive meeting, at the headquarters of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, in the presence of a number of tourism investors.
Minister Manar praised the effective co-operation and coordination between the two ministries to activate the air traffic and incoming tourism to the tourist attractions in Egypt.
He praised the role of the political leadership and the Egyptian government to support the tourism and aviation sectors and encourage investments in Egypt, adding that the Ministry of Civil Aviation is seeking to grant many appropriate facilities to investors in order to stimulate air and tourism movement and work to overcome the obstacles they may face.
During the meeting, the two sides discussed mechanisms and ways to boost and stimulate incoming air and tourist traffic to Egypt by providing a package of discounts that contribute to promoting the Egyptian tourist destinations and attracting more air and tourist traffic from foreign markets to Egypt, as well as overcoming all difficulties for tour operators and investors.
The two ministers listened to the views and proposals of tourism investors to increase the number of tourists to various tourist cities and destinations in Egypt. They also discussed mechanisms for operating new flights from some European countries to Luxor to encourage cultural tourism.
For his part, the tourism minister indicated that linking Egyptian tourist destinations with each other contributes to creating an integrated tourism product that combines different tourism patterns, such as integrating cultural tourism with beach and recreational tourism, which is a basic requirement on the part of tour operators and tourists.
On the other hand, EgyptAir, headed by pilot Amr Abou El-Enein, plans to increase its fleet for most of the wide and medium models through negotiations with manufacturers and leased companies to meet their needs so that the company can open new destinations in Africa, America and the Far East and increase the frequencies for those destinations.
The company launched the Kinshasa line in March, in addition to the Dublin line in Ireland this June.
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, Pilot Amr Nabil, President of EgyptAir Airlines, confirmed that the 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 measures for tourists to undertake beach and cultural tourism in one programme.
EgyptAir operated a direct line between Luxor, Sharm el-Sheikh, and a study is underway to operate other lines according to the volume of demand.
The company also 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.
