Egypt Air eyes pie of India transit traffic with direct flights
Mint. “Next step will be codeshare with Indian companies," Moussa said, adding that the airline is getting ready to initiate discussions for a codeshare as part of the strategy going forward. The airline will operate the direct flight between New Delhi and Cairo four times a week in an Airbus A320neo with a two-cabin service.
With the new route, the airline is the sole carrier that provides direct connectivity to Cairo from Mumbai and New Delhi. Notably, various smaller airlines in the region are eyeing the Indian market after the Indian government restricted any more new foreign flights by large carriers like Emirates, Qatar and even Singapore Airlines. These carriers carry a lot of traffic from India to lucrative markets like the US, Europe through their home country.
As per data for the March quarter from the civil aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the airline carried 21,809 passengers between Mumbai and Cairo. Under the current bilateral agreement, the country has the scope to operate 14 weekly flights. The airline has now achieved 11 weekly flights with seven flights a week from Mumbai and four flights a week from New Delhi.
The airline said it is looking at destinations in the south of India to enhance connectivity and may also increase frequency from New Delhi around the summer season next year. “After recovery from covid, many people are now keen and have huge need to travel. As Egypt Air has a very good connectivity network with hub in Cairo, we see here in India a very big potential to catch traffic from India to Cairo and beyond Cairo to our network destinations in Africa, North America and Europe," country manager Amr Ali told Mint.
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