São Paulo wins direct flights to Cairo, Egypt – 05/15/2023 – Tourism

As of September 4, Brazil will have a new and unprecedented direct air link with Egypt. Chartered by Masterflights, a Spanish airline consolidator, the nonstop flights between São Paulo and Cairo will be operated every two weeks by EgyptAir, Egypt’s state airline, and went on sale this Friday (12).

Currently, travel between São Paulo and Cairo requires at least one connection in Europe, the Middle East or Istanbul, Turkey – bringing the total travel time to at least 17h. The new direct flight should last just over 12 hours, and will be operated by the Boeing 787-900 Dreamliner, the most modern aircraft from the American manufacturer, with capacity for 300 passengers (279 in economy and 21 in executive).

Already approved by Anac (National Civil Aviation Agency), the flights are scheduled to depart from Guarulhos International Airport always on Mondays, at 4 am, arriving in Cairo at 4:35 pm. Return flights depart from the Egyptian capital on Saturdays at 6 pm and arrive in Guarulhos at 7:20 am the following day. Times represent local time in cities.

As initially the flights will be fortnightly, those who want to go and return to Egypt without stopovers will necessarily need to stay for 12 nights in the destination — this will be the proposal of the packages offered by the travel agencies that sell the flight. Those who prefer can only buy flights, without accommodation and tours, but with the same date restrictions.

As of January, if the demand is confirmed, the flights will be weekly, allowing passengers to make a shorter journey, of five days, going to and from the African country in the same week.

For 2024, there are plans to add one more weekly frequency to the route and even extend one of them to Buenos Aires, reinforcing passenger options on the route between São Paulo and the Argentine capital —which, in addition to the national companies of both countries, is also operated by five other foreign companies, which are a good alternative for executive travel without spending a fortune.

The non-stop connection between Brazil and Egypt had already been negotiated by Embratur with the Egyptian authorities and EgyptAir at least since last year. But, according to the CEO of MasterFlights, Alfonso Martinez, a set of factors including the absence of bilateral agreements between the countries, market risks and fleet limitations ended up making the operation unfeasible.

That’s when the company’s business model, based on charter, proved to be an option, mainly because it shared the airline’s risks with the consolidator —which already offers 14 weekly flights between its country of origin, Spain, and Egypt. The two companies then created a joint venture in Brazil, which will offer the new flight to Brazilians through travel agencies.

“In the last year, even without a direct connection, Egypt received around 40,000 Brazilian tourists, mostly through religious tourism, and who take the opportunity to visit Egypt and Israel on the same trip,” said Martinez to Sheet.

“With a weekly flight, we managed to meet just over a third of this demand, which should certainly grow with a new non-stop option. Not to mention the large Arab and Israeli colonies that Brazil is home to and which should also contribute to the growth of the route. “, estimates the executive.

How to travel to Egypt nonstop

Passengers looking for the new EgyptAir flight on search engines like Skycanner and Google Flights will not find it. As it is a chartered flight, it will only be offered through travel agencies, which can only sell flights or packages that also include accommodation and tours. Connections from Cairo to Tel Aviv, Israel, will also be offered. “Look for your trusted travel agent and ask him about direct flights to Egypt”, recommends the CEO of MasterFlights, which serves travel agents through the website www.egyptflights.com.br.

Charter, or chartered, flight is a type of flight widely used by tourism operators to meet a specific demand that, despite existing, is still not large enough to justify the operation of regular flights. It’s the same model that travel agencies like CVC use to take large groups of cities in the interior of the country (which normally does not have good air connectivity) straight to highly sought after tourist destinations, such as the northeastern capitals.