Egypt Air Temporarily Suspends Its Flights to Juba

2 April 2011

Khartoum — The state owned airline company of Egypt Air announced today that it has decided to temporarily suspend its flights to South Sudan capital of Juba saying it has recently became unprofitable.

Hussein Massoud president of Egypt Air told state owned Al-Ahram newspaper that the number of passengers kept diminishing to the point where in some instances only twenty seats were filled on a given flight. The report said that the airline sent a memo to the Egyptian Prime Minister in this regard for possible government aid to support the Cairo-Juba flights.

Egypt Air launched the route in mid-2010 with two flights a week to Juba as part of a strategy to expand in Africa.

Parmena Makuet Mangar, who heads the Government of South Sudan liaison office in Egypt, told Al-Ahram from Juba that this move generated shock in the South particularly in light of recent visit by the Egyptian Prime minister Essam Sharaf.

South Sudan will officially become an independent state next July after its citizens made that choice in the referendum held last January.

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