Why doesn't Ryanair fly to Egypt?

anavigato · Sun Sep 25, 2022 7:51 pm

Wizz Air flies from Italy, Eurowings from Germany, Austria and Prague.

And Easyjet flies to Egypt from Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands and the UK.

Egypt is the only country that meets all these criteria:
+ actually warm in winter
+ sufficiently developped
+ can be reached from Western Europe inside the 6 hour range:

mapdeveloppers 6 hour range around Hurghada

Providing seasonal winter flights would utilize the unused Ryanair planes in the winter schedule.

FR could connect Egypt with all their bases in:
- Germany
- England
- Italy
- Poland and
- Copenhagen
- Prague
- Paris Beauvais
- Budapest
- Stockholm ARN
- Zagreb
- Brussels Charleroi

So, why doesn't Ryanair fly to Egypt?

davidjohnson6 · Sun Sep 25, 2022 9:31 pm

Perhaps because Egypt has been so unstable over the last 20 years ? When something happens in Egypt, it seems to be very significant and you end up with leisure travellers fleeing for a year or more. Sinai still has significant security issues
People carrying AK-47s and firing live bullets at tourists doesn't do much for leisure-focussed airlines - this was a significant contributor to the collapse of Monarch and Thomas Cook

Ryanair have already learned this lesson in Ukraine and the rapid reallocation of aircraft in spring 2022. Ryanair were starting in Armenia in early 2020 just before Covid, but following war (again) with Azerbaijan, Ryanair are unlikely to come back to Armenia for a while. Jordan by contrast has been admirably quiet and sleepy - exactly what you need to grow inbound tourism

Political stability is not often discussed on a.net (we seem to prefer fantasising about A380s) but it is VERY important when running an airline that flies to many countries

Mortyman · Mon Sep 26, 2022 7:21 pm

Why would you want to fly Ryanair anywhere ?

SCQ83 · Mon Sep 26, 2022 8:29 pm

davidjohnson6 wrote:
Perhaps because Egypt has been so unstable over the last 20 years ? When something happens in Egypt, it seems to be very significant and you end up with leisure travellers fleeing for a year or more. Sinai still has significant security issues
People carrying AK-47s and firing live bullets at tourists doesn't do much for leisure-focussed airlines - this was a significant contributor to the collapse of Monarch and Thomas Cook

Ryanair have already learned this lesson in Ukraine and the rapid reallocation of aircraft in spring 2022. Ryanair were starting in Armenia in early 2020 just before Covid, but following war (again) with Azerbaijan, Ryanair are unlikely to come back to Armenia for a while. Jordan by contrast has been admirably quiet and sleepy - exactly what you need to grow inbound tourism

It is about open skies and subsidies.

Ryanair left Armenia because of COVID and afterwards the Armenian government decided to create Fly Arna in collaboration with Air Arabia. So the money went there. The war has nothing to do with it.

Egypt has a very closed policy to protect EgyptAir and all the Egyptian carriers (Air Cairo, Nesma, etc). Egypt will not give money to the Ryanairs or WizzAirs of the world.

Jordan on the other hand has open skies policies for Euro carriers and handle money to Wizz or Ryanair to open new routes unserved by Royal Jordanian.

If the Egyptian government would give money to Ryanair to open new routes from Alexandria to Charleroi or from Cairo to Memmingen, Ryanair would be there tomorrow.

PatrickZ80 · Tue Sep 27, 2022 12:21 pm

Indeed getting access to Egypt isn't easy, there's no open skies policy. It relies on bilaterals.

Besides, your claim that Egypt is sufficiently developed might be stretching it. The tourist resorts are, of course. But if you look in the cities Egypt is a poor country, not much money to be made there.

eicvd · Tue Sep 27, 2022 7:21 pm

Mortyman wrote:
Why would you want to fly Ryanair anywhere ?

Only took the 2nd reply for the comedian to appear….

anavigato · Wed Sep 28, 2022 6:28 pm

SCQ83 wrote:
Egypt will not give money to the Ryanairs or WizzAirs of the world.

If the Egyptian government would give money to Ryanair to open new routes from Alexandria to Charleroi or from Cairo to Memmingen, Ryanair would be there tomorrow.

Hm Wizz Air already connects Egypt with about 10 European destinations. Fares from 29€. And Easyjet from 32€. Ryanair wants even lower charges to be able to offer lower fares than those?!

PatrickZ80 wrote:
Besides, your claim that Egypt is sufficiently developed might be stretching it. The tourist resorts are, of course. But if you look in the cities Egypt is a poor country, not much money to be made there.

Let's say sufficiently developed tourism environment. In contrast to other warm winter countries like Mauritania, Southern Morocco/Western Sahara, Mali, Niger, Chad and Southern Algeria/Libya

Why doesn't Ryanair fly to Egypt?

Why doesn't Ryanair fly to Egypt?

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