Turkish airlines will send direct flights to Luxor in 2019

CAIRO – 18 August 2018: Turkish airlines announced on Friday that it would start sending flights to Luxor directly. The first flights will start in October 2019, according to Tharwat Al Ajami, the tourism advisor to tourist companies in Luxor.

Ajami explained that flights will come from Europe and all over the world via Turkey, as transit, to Luxor directly. The counterparts agreed to start with four flights and gradually increase them to eight by January 2020.

“We went on a number of tours in Luxor with the representative of the Turkish Airlines in Hurghada and someone from Istanbul also came over to Luxor where we held a series of meetings to study the tourism industry in Luxor and Aswan,” he told Egypt Today.

Ajami added that after two years, they concluded an agreement to start these direct flights in October 2019. This is similar to what is happening in Hurghada as the Turkish Airlines also operates direct flights to Hurghada.

The tourism industry in Egypt has been in a state of limbo for years; however, when the industry begins to improve, this improvement will be reflected in all other sectors and industries in Egypt. In turn, this will encourage tourism companies, travel agencies and airlines to seek new contracts and new agreements that would inevitably revitalize the tourism industry in Egypt as a whole.

Simply flying from one place to another is not as easy as it sounds anymore as it is a problem that most tourists face due to increasing prices and oftentimes, lack of direct flights to a particular destination. These obstacles most certainly cause tourists to cross some countries off their list while planning vacations.

Luxor and Aswan are probably the two most popular and important touristic destinations in Egypt. However, to arrive in Luxor, tourists first have to land in Cairo’s International Airport and then take another internal flight to Luxor. With the gem that is Luxor, Egypt needed a faster, direct route so that tourists are encouraged to come.

Ajami stressed that these direct routes will solve the problems tourists face when planning their visits that will in turn, improve the tourism industry in Egypt. Not only because of this but also because Turkish Airlines is considered cheap compared to other airlines, this would be even more encouraging for tourists who are suffering financially but are still looking for a good holiday

This agreement is expected to benefit Luxor and Aswan enormously and it will hopefully attract many tourism companies and travel agencies to work with the Turkish Airlines, he added.

Considering the delay in implementing these resolutions, Ajami confirmed that the airlines is setting its own schedule before the year starts and so this would inevitably take a long time to agree on the logistical matters internally.

Back in 2015, many airlines, including Turkish Airlines, suspended their flights to Sharm El-Sheikh due to the bombing of a Russian Jet that took off from Egypt killing all people on board. Interestingly, Turkey was the first of all the airline companies that resumed its route to Egypt almost a year after the supposed terrorist attack, according to a statement the embassy had previously said.

Additional reporting done by Amal Raslan