EgyptAir Signs More Airline Agreements

While EgyptAir has been off line for six years and a resumption of online services is not on the horizon we have been experiencing good traffic from Australia mainly due to a devoted network of travel agents and a series of cooperative agreements that have been signed with major carriers, said Maged Mohamed, Manager, Australia, EgyptAir.

Many EgyptAir passengers ex Australia utilise a Thai International Airways flight to Bangkok where they connect with our daily onward Boeing 777 flight to Cairo, he said.

Another agreement was signed with Malaysia Airlines on December 1 which allows Australian passengers to fly to Kuala Lumpur and then connect with a thrice weekly EgyptAir service to Cairo.

The newest pact was signed with South African Airways earlier this year.  This agreement allows Australian passengers to fly to Johannesburg and then take a connecting EgyptAir flight to Cairo.

[Pictured right: While the resumption of flights to Australia is not being planned, Australians nonetheless have a options to fly with EgyptAir to Cairo via an increasing number of online ports.]

In addition to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur EgyptAir is also online in Asia to Tokyo and Osaka as well as Guangzhou and Beijing.  While Mr Mohamed doesn’t foresee any accords being signed with Japanese carriers in the near future “we are trying for an agreement with Air China that allows passengers to travel from Australia through Beijing and then on to Cairo with EgyptAir”, he said.

While Cairo remains the destination for much of EgyptAir’s traffic originating in Australia other ports in Africa and Middle East are also popular.  Addis Ababa, Asmara in Eritrea and Entebbe, Uganda are the three popular destinations out of Australia, he said. 

The EgyptAir office in Sydney works in tandem with the Egyptian Tourism Authority in Tokyo which covers the Australian market to promote Egypt as a highly desirable travel destination. 

Mr Mohamed anticipates that the executives from Tokyo’s ETA office will attend the upcoming Travel XPO being held in Sydney on March 15 and 16 or in Melbourne on April 12 and 13.

Exclusive Report by Thomas E. King, TravelMole’s Travel and Lifestyle Editor