As the political crisis expands, a new aviation minister has been named, but unfortunately, writes Amirah Ibrahim, he faces a tough mission. In an attempt to calm down protestors, Prime Minister Essam Sharaf responded to growing demands by civil aviation employees and appointed a new minister, but unfortunately for the protesters, a military official. General Lotfi Mustafa , Air Forces chief of staff, has taken over the Aviation Ministry, within a reshuffled government that brought in 15 new ministers. was supposed to take the oath of office before the military council's head Hussein Tantawi on Monday. But it was delayed Indefinitely . As such, is the third military minister to take the post in a row. Established in 2002, the ministry was first assigned to ex-Air Force commander Ahmad Shafiq, who ended his career as prime minister five months ago. When Shafiq was appointed PM by ex-president Hosni Mubarak following the 25 January uprise, he appointed his aid and military colleague Ibrahim Mannaa to take the post. Mannaa has been responsible for modernising and upgrading Egyptian airports since 2002. Unfortunately, Mannaa did not meet as much success as when he supervised the airports. With the traffic collapse which damaged the business over the first half of 2011, business losses hit LE2 billion. The national carrier had to ground 65 per cent of its fleet for months following the unrest, and has estimated its losses at LE300 million monthly. "We started losing some LE800 million in February," explained Hussein Massoud, chairman of EgyptAir Holding Company. "June has recorded the lowest figure. The total losses have exceeded LE1.5 billion." According to Massoud, Omrah and Hajj seasons which started two month ago and continue till the end of November, will give the traffic a breather. Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians, regardless of the current political crisis, will head to the holy lands in Saudi Arabia to perform Omrah during the holy month of Ramadan and Hajj later in October. Most foreign airlines have reduced operations to Egyptian airports ever since the 25 January unrest where as a number of Egyptian airlines, with limited operations, have suspended operation due to the collapse of traffic. Meanwhile, the costs of maintaining Egyptian airports, proved to be high. Regional airports such as Luxor, Aswan and Alexandria remained open, operating two flights daily, mainly by the national carrier. Red Sea resorts of Hurghada and Sharm El-Sheikh retained limited traffic. When protestors gather in Tahrir Square, charter flights to both cities stop. Burdened with 40,000 employees, 31,000 of which are hired by the national carrier, the new aviation minister faces a serious difficulty to ensure financial support to provide their salaries. will find himself face to face with more protestors at the air controllers company, flight attendants and pilots, all of whom have been raising social demands requesting significant increases of bonuses. Members of the three sectors have threatened to go on strikes, sit-ins and slow-downs to force the management to negotiate their demands. The last was two months ago, when traffic controllers announced a slowdown that would have ended in a strike. The act was aborted when Air Force Commander Reda Hafez handled the crisis, using both soft and aggressive notes in negotiating with protestors. Flight attendants at the national carrier have raised demands to get the same financial payments as the pilots. "We work onboard over the skies as our pilot colleagues do, we face the same dangers, suffer the same illnesses caused by air travel, but they are being paid generously while we are not," commented one male flight attendant. The new cabinet is set to handle daily issues, not to make plans and major decisions till a new parliament is elected in November followed by the election of a new president. So far, will not be expected to take any radical steps as aviation minister. Yet, his performance could seriously impact either positively or negatively an already damaged while waiting for the cloudy skies to clear. We wish him well.
