By Akram Medhat
Safwat Mosallam, chairman of EgyptAir Holding Company, said it has been decided to operate a direct, scheduled route from Cairo to Narita Airport in Japan, connected to domestic tourist cities, starting with the new winter schedule from October 29, with one weekly flight on Saturdays that may be increased if demand for the Egyptian tourist destination grows. He added that EgyptAir and the Japanese side are currently coordinating on obtaining the permits needed to operate these flights.
This confirms what “Travel Yalla News” had raised about the fate of Japanese tourism to Egypt, especially to Luxor, after Qatar Airways was banned from Egyptian airspace. The carrier had been the beneficiary of tourist traffic from major Asian markets, most notably Japan, because of the absence of a direct flight, as well as China and India.
For his part, Captain Sherif Ezzat, chairman of EgyptAir Airlines, said the time had become right to operate the route following the implementation of EgyptAir's fleet replacement and development plan and the addition of new Boeing B737-800 NG aircraft, which operate on short- and medium-haul routes. This freed up wide-body aircraft for long-haul flights, including the Japanese market, which has EgyptAir's attention, though supply and demand conditions had delayed its launch in the past period.
He explained that the new flights to Narita are planned to be operated on the company's latest Boeing B777-300ER aircraft, which seat 346 passengers.
It is worth noting that EgyptAir used to operate direct flights to Tokyo and Osaka in Japan, but they stopped after the January 2011 revolution, then resumed for a limited period before stopping completely in 2013 due to the decline in tourist traffic from Japan and the route not being economically viable at the time.
According to tourism statistics obtained exclusively by “Travel Yalla News,” the total number of tourists arriving in Egypt from Japan in the first four months of 2017 reached about 15,000, up 168%, spending 88,000 tourist nights, an increase of 115%.
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