El Al to continue flights to Cairo until year’s end

The company had agreed to a request from Ministry of Transport director general Gideon Siterman to continue flying to Cairo until the end of 2006
 
Following the announcement made 10 days ago that due to high security costs on its Cairo flights, El Al Israel airlines was unable to continue to operate the two weekly flights, the company had agreed to a request from Ministry of Transport director general Gideon Siterman to continue flying to Cairo until the end of 2006.
 
It is understood that Siterman told El Al he would find a solution that will enable regular flights on the Tel Aviv-Cairo route by then.
 
If no solution is found for El Al flights the route could be offered instead either to Israir Airlines or to Arkia Airlines.
 
The news concerning the decision to halt Cairo flights was first made public by port2port and followed by an announcement of Siterman who said that the decision was unilateral, and that he considered the continued operation of the line to be of great importance.
 
El Al operates two weekly flights to Cairo, on Sunday and Thursday. Prior to 2001 the flights were operated on daily basis however, due to the civil unrest in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip the number of passengers was severely affected which could not justify daily flights.
 
El Al shares the route with Egypt's Air Sinai which was established in 1982 to fly scheduled services between Egypt and Israel, which for political reasons could not be handled by EgyptAir.