Global Aviator May 2018 / Vol. 10 / No. 5 9
The airline operates to
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar,
Jordan in the middle east,
and inclusive tour flights
to Egypt from Europe.
The first aircraft in
Air Cairo’s fleet of seven
Airbus 320s to wear the
new livery is Airbus A320-
214 SU-BTM (MSN 4320),
originally delivered in 2010
to TAM Linhas Aereas and
is now being transferred to
Air Cairo. She was painted
by JOB Air Technic in
Ostrava, Czech Republic.
Recently, the company
moved towards the low fare
model which is planned to be
the strongest low fare airline
in Egypt. On 1 June 2012 Air
Cairo launched its first ever
scheduled flight from Borg El
Arab Airport Alexandria to
Kuwait International Airport,
Queen Alia International
Airport, King Abdul Aziz
International Airport, Tripoli
International Airport, Sabha
Airport, Misrata Airport and
King Khaled International
Airport. Air Cairo also
launched its scheduled
flights from Hurghada
International Airport to
Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport.
Those flights were suspended
in the end of December
2015 due to poor loads.
The airline had planned
to move from a fleet of seven
Airbus A320s at the end of
2016 to 20 by the end of the
decade. Progress has slowed,
but chairman and CEO, Yasser
El-Ramly, is hopeful that the
delay won’t be too great.
“We now have nine
A320s and we’re going
to increase that to 12 by
summer 2018. We’re behind
our plan, but I think we
will reach our new business
plan by around 2021.”
A single aircraft is
dedicated to the Cairo
market and has a business-
class cabin to complement
the economy-class seats,
but the rest of its Airbuses
operate with a single-class
configuration. Air Cairo flew
around 250,000 tourists to
Egypt over the summer 2017
season on roughly 65 flights a
week, more than double last
year’s number of services.
Those were split roughly
75/25% between scheduledand charter flights. This is
regarded by El-Ramly as
healthy, considering that on
its routes from Germany it
typically faces competition
from five or six airlines,
including many of Europe’s
major low-cost carriers.
Air Cairo is starting to
branch out in new directions.
It has instituted a new
Sharm El Sheikh-Yerevan
service to the Armenian
capital and, by the time of
publication, Milan should
also have been added to the
route map, with Stockholm
and flights to Azerbaijan
possibly following shortly.
El-Ramly believes that
Egyptian airlines should
increase the size of their fleets
to improve that figure: “We
are the largest private airlinein Egypt, but still only have
10 aircraft and the rest of
them in total have not more
than around 25 in total.”
The halving of the
value of the Egyptian pound
against the US dollar due to
the floating of the currency
meant that yields went
through the floor. Obviously
airlines like Air Cairo could
not simply double their
fares to compensate – “The
market wouldn’t accept that
immediately” – but it has
been slowly inching up its
fares to recover yield levels.
El-Ramly remains “very
optimistic” and is confident
that within the next year Air
Cairo will have returned to the
levels of success seen before
political unrest started to affect
the country in recent years. •Air Cairo – a new beginning
Air Cairo, the low fare subsidiary of EgyptAir based at Cairo International Airport,
has undergone a change of livery on their aircraft, replacing the classic dark blue
colours and small titles with a new, much more modern look featuring a colourful
triangular pattern around the rear end of the aircraft