The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism wants Egyptair to set up a low-cost department or subsidiary that brings holidaymakers from Europe and the Middle East to Marsa Alam, Hurghada, Sharm El Sheikh and Taba, for example.

Tourism Minister Khaled Al-Anani and Aviation Minister Mohamed Manar announced that the new low-cost airline will compete directly with existing charter offers. They want to bring more individual tourists into the country and thus make themselves more independent of package tour operators.

The two members of the government did not say exactly how this should work. It would be obvious that the subsidiary Ai Cairo could take on this task, but that was explicitly excluded. This carrier should continue to serve the charter business. The question of whether Egyptair will found a new subsidiary with its own AOC for the low-cost project or whether it will only operate a few aircraft under a different brand was not answered either.

It is also interesting that Taba was explicitly mentioned as a destination. The seaside resort is located right on the border with Eilat (Israel) and has obviously seen its prime. The place is very small and consists mostly of hotels and casinos. The airport has two 4.000 meter long runways and is quite sleepy, as there was little air traffic even before the corona pandemic. However, the airport was not oversized, but is a legacy of Israel, because the Etzion Air Force Base existed here until the return of the Sinai Peninsula.

The state wants to benefit from closed borders

With the planned lowcoster, Egypt also wants to take the pole position when it comes to reactivating tourism. The members of the government expect that numerous holiday destinations popular with Europeans will close their borders in the summer of 2021. You want to benefit from this and start as an inexpensive alternative.

However, the European states could thwart this view, because even if Egypt were to allow vacations without quarantine, vaccinations or tests, isolation could threaten when returning home. In the summer of 2020, for example, holidaymakers in Spain were surprised by a sudden quarantine obligation in their home country, for example Austria, Germany and the United Kingdom. Due to the high number of infections in winter 2020/21, the "summer measures" that were taken because of only a few infected people were a veritable farce.