Daily News Egypt

Egypt-Air plans daily flights between Mumbai and Cairo by 2008-end

24 November 2007

Egypt-Air, which enhanced operations on the Mumbai-Cairo route from two flights a week to three flights a week earlier this year in June, is now planning to elevate the frequency to daily flights, the Travel Business Monitor reported.

The airline is also looking to add New Delhi and Bangalore on its route map by operating thrice a week to both the cities. "WE have acquired the traffic rights to start more flights to India since last year. However, since e do not have additional aircraft in our fleet at this point of time, we have not been able to enhance operations to India. We are planning to deploy A330 aircraft on all the new flights, which are likely to be launched by 2008-end", Ahmed Wasfy, Regional Manager of Egypt Air in India told the Travel Business Monitor.

Apart from connecting Mumbai with Cairo, the airline also flies thrice a week on the Mumbai-Kuala Lumpur route. It operates an A330 aircraft on both the routes.

The airline is also looking at introducing web check-in and SMS check-in services for tits passengers in India, but things are still at the planning stage.

According to Wasfy, there has been a 12 percent year-on-year increase in tourist traffic from India to Egypt and the airline has been registering almost 75 percent load factor on its Mumbai-Cairo flights. He added that as far the Mumbai-Kuala Lumpur route is concerned, the airline has witnessed load factors as high as 90 percent. The airline recently became a member of Star Alliance.

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