Reoperation of the Madinah flights

Starting 22 January , EGYPTAIR will re-operate its flights from Egypt to Madinah in Saudi Arabia as follows:

- From Cairo to Medina daily flight  depart Cairo at 15:40 pm and arrive at Madinah at 18:30 pm , depart Madinah at 19:30 pm and arrive Cairo at 20:35 pm .

- From Alexandria to Madinah 3weekly flights on Wednesday , Thursday and Sunday

Alexandria – Madinah flights depart at 09:30 am arrive Madinah at 12:35 pm , depart from Madinah at 13:35 pm and arrive Alexandria at 16:15 pm . 

Source: Egyptair.com

Egyptair: Umrah/Ramadan/Summer peak season update

EgyptAir will lease 2 B767-300ER aircraft over the peak Umrah/Ramadan/Summer season (10AUG10-19SEP10). The aircraft are configured with 285 seats in an all-economy layout.

Both B763s will almost exclusively fly CAI-JED-CAI, with each aircraft operating 3 daily rotations (for a total of 6 daily flights). EgyptAir's existing scheduled services on the route remain unchanged.

This represents a significant capacity increase on CAI-JED over this period. Here is a breakdown:

• the existing 5x daily scheduled MS flights on the route, equate to approx 15,500 seats per week.
• the additional B763s flights will add a further 25,000 seats per week.

In total EgyptAir will offer over 40,000 seats per week on the route during AUG-SEP. To put this into perspective this is similar to offering 6 daily return flights with an A380.

In addition to this, Saudi Arabian Airlines are also offering a similar number of seats during this peak period.


Source: Horus!

EgyptAir named at 2011 IATA world meeting hosts

Posted on 9 June 2010 in Events

EgyptAir will be the focus of air transport industry attention over the next year, with the 2011 IATA annual general meeting now confirmed to be hosted in Cairo. This follows the Star Alliance carrier hosting the Arab Air Carriers Organization's (AACO) yearly gathering in October.

“All air carriers compete to get such an opportunity,” EgyptAir holding company chairman Hussein Massoud told Arabian Aerospace, as the IATA AGM ended in Berlin yesterday.

Massoud said the events will highlight the Egyptian capital as a place for decision-makers to discuss strategy.

With the air transport industry facing many problems, he says, carrier representatives are drawn to high-level conferences. The popularity of the Berlin event is evidence of this, he added: “This gives an indication that, as long as there is a hot issue, people are interested in such meetings.”

EgyptAir is continuing to take delivery of new aircraft, with its first Airbus A330-300 due to arrive in August, several months earlier than originally planned, while four Boeing 737-800s and two more 777-300s will come later this year. Massoud says the carrier is in the next stage of its fleet-planning process, with the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787 likely to be considered.

Meanwhile Air Arabia’s establishment of a base in Alexandria this month shows that national carrier is not immune to budget carrier competition.

But it has also highlighted an arrangement which prohibits private airlines such as Saudi Arabia’s Sama and NAS Air from operating to Cairo, even though technically the two countries have an ‘open skies’ pact. Massoud says: “You must continue the sentence: it’s open skies, but not when the parties will be hurt.”

This situation has led to a dispute, which started on 5 April when Saudi authorities banned EgyptAir from the Medina route, prompting a similar restriction against Saudi Arabian Airlines on the same route.

Source

AlMasria Universal Airline to start Alexandria-Jeddah

Although the airline announced they will start Cairo-Jeddah, they have changed plans and will start Alexandria-Jeddah instead from 31MAY10. I expect the current Egypt-KSA saga played a role in this.
AlMasria's schedule:
ALY JED UJ903 02:45 05:00 1234567 2:15 A320 0
JED ALY UJ904 06:30 08:55 1234567 2:25 A320 0
The airline will face stiff competition on the route from MS and 3 Saudi carriers:

• EgyptAir: 7x weekly ALY-JED with A320
• Saudi Arabian: 5x weekly JED-ALY with A320
• Nasair: 12x weekly JED-HBE with A320/E190
• Sama:7x weekly JED-HBE with B733

Source: Horus

Egypt won't allow Saudi budget flights

Egypt's aviation minister vowed on Monday that his country won't allow Saudi budget flights to land at Cairo's airport without a bilateral aviation agreement, voiding the open sky policy currently in place.

Ahmed Shafik told the parliament that that the measure was to protect the state owned airline, EgyptAir.

He described the open sky policy as "a big cheat," saying the unregulated flights of budget Saudi airlines SAMA and NAS was taking business away from the Egyptian carrier.

Egypt does not have budget airlines of its own.

The aviation flap comes during a period chilling ties between the countries.

In March Egypt banned the Kingdom's two budget airlines, SAMA and NAS, from landing in Cairo arguing that their cheap prices negatively affect Egyptian.

After the March order banning the Saudi flights, the kingdom responded by barring EgyptAir from flying to the holy city of Medina where tens of thousands of Egyptian pilgrims flock every year.

Source: Horus