EgyptAir woos Nigerian travelers
To encourage more passengers from Nigeria travel to Cairo, Egypt and beyond, EgyptAir says it is offering cheaper airfares, waive penalties for rescheduling of travel date, refund and change in reservations.
This is just as the airline has concluded plans to give visa-on-arrival and free PCR Covid-19 test to Nigerian tourist travelers to Egypt.
In an interview with reporters in Lagos on arrival of EgyptAir’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft to the Lagos airport, the General Manager, EgyptAir in Nigeria, Mr. Muharram Abdelrahman says EgyptAir understands the huge budget for travelers having to pay for PCR tests in and out of Nigeria and to this end, the airline thought it wise to reduce this budget with pocket friendly fares.
“As EgyptAir, we gave all facilities to travel agencies, now if anyone needs to issue his ticket or reschedule his travel date, we are no longer collecting anything, it is free. We waive the penalty for refund; we waive the penalty to change reservation to encourage more people to come”.
“We are now offering reduced fares without any restrictions, if you come and fly with EgyptAir, and we will give you very rate that is good, because to have a PCR it will cost money and to have another PCR at destination will cost money and all the PCR’s you can add it to the budget of the travel and it will be high, so we need to encourage people and so we are offering very reduced price to the people.”
Abdelrahman emphasized that, the airline takes seriously the health and safety of its passengers, airport and its crew, adding that, passengers going to Cairo were expected have their PCR test 72 hours before travel.
He also explained that the airline was also abreast with the requirements of each country they operate to as regards the covid-19 health protocols to assist its passengers enjoy seamless airport, departure and arrival formalities.
“You know, we have two categories of passengers, one, those going to Cairo and those going beyond Cairo. For those heading to Cairo should have PCR test 72 hours before their journey but those going beyond Cairo, we are applying the policy instruction of entering the country he/she is going, for example, if he is going to London and British is not requiring PCR, it is okay, we find out the destinations and find out the instructions that applies to the passengers and we carrying 81% beyond Cairo and about 20-21% to Cairo on our flight”.
He said for aviation and tourism to thrive in this period of the pandemic, people needed to be encouraged and given the assurance that it was safe and secured to fly even with the covid-19.
According to him, EgyptAir was currently in talks with the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies, NANTA, on how to work together and come up with solutions, ideas to relieve passengers of their fears, adding that determined to boost their tourism industry and stimulate the airline business, certain incentives have been put in place.
These incentives he says include, discount in hotel reservations, visa-on-arrival, free PCR Covid-19 test etc.
“Now, our duty is to encourage people, how to tell them to come and travel, even now, we are putting up programme for Nigerians to visit Egypt as tourists. You know Egypt is a popular destination for people to come and visit Egypt. Now, we have a programme, if you stay 3 nights, 4 days in Cairo, you can get visa on arrival and you don’t need to do PCR test, we will do PCR on arrival for free, just come, we need to encourage people to travel”.
“We must work together, airlines and travel agencies on how to encourage people to travel, people are apprehensive, they have a lot of reservations about travel but for aviation and tourism to survive, we must have solutions and ideas, think out of the box on how to encourage people to come and travel and not be afraid because this is a win-win situation for the aviation field and tourism field”.
On passenger load factor from Nigeria since opening of the Nigerian airspace to foreign airlines, Mr. Abdelrahman says, the load factor had been good as EgyptAir had moved from twice weekly flights to 4 times daily from Lagos and Abuja.
He said, the airline had applied for more frequencies and had submitted a letter to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, to fly daily. “We need to increase we have more passengers on ground and we need to accommodate them and so we are requesting that we need to operate daily. Now, we have 4 frequencies from Abuja and 4 frequencies from Lagos but we need to operate daily from Abuja and daily from Lagos, so we have a lot of passengers”.
The EgyptAir General Manager stressed that the Nigerian market is important to the airline, this was the reason EgyptAir does not spare anything to ensure the Nigerian passengers get the best product, the best price and other incentives.
On the newly acquired and deployment of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner on the Cairo-Lagos route, Abdelrahman says, “Nigeria market is one of the most important market to EgyptAir and Nigeria passengers deserve good product and good service that we can give to them and we are always enhancing our product and we are offering to Nigerian passengers one of this enhancement is that we got this new dreamliner aircraft with the facilities and luxury”.
“We came today to show Nigerian passengers that we brought better product for them to carry them to all parts of the world. And number two, we just finished renovating the airport office as you have seen and to accommodate them in a good place and give them good service in a good condition”.
“Because Nigeria deserve better product, we need to bring better product to Nigeria so that they can be happy, so that they can fly on EgyptAir and you know we are making Cairo as hub. We carry people from Cairo and from Cairo to all over the world; we have about 80 destinations we fly into from Cairo. Nigeria market is one of the most important markets to EgyprAir”, he added.
