A successful Hajj season Cairo International Airport and the national carrier Egypt Air celebrate the end of successful Hajj season as it comes to a closure tomorrow According to official figures, the airline operated 350 flights to transfer more than 90,000 pilgrims from Jeddah and Al-Madinah, at expanded rate of daily flights which extended over two weeks and hit 24 flights on one day. The peak for Hajj traffic at Cairo international was on 13 November when the airport received 21 flights operated by EgyptAir and 15 flights operated by Saudi Airlines. Both carriers dominate the Hajj and Omra flight operation between the two countries. Saudi airlines announced the end of Hajj flights to Egypt last Friday. The main bulk of Hajj flights operated to Cairo International while a few flights operated to regional airports such as Luxor in Upper Egypt, Assiut in middle Egypt and Alexandria on the north coast. Automated baggage hit target The Automated Baggage Rules (ABR) project successfully met its last target on 2 November 2011. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), six Global Distribution Systems (GDS) as well as the other system providers released their solution between April and November 2011 in order to be compliant with the IATA Resolution 302 and the US Department of Transport (DOT) rules. This project kicked off through a mobilisation campaign led by the Airline Tariff Publishing Company (ATPCO) and IATA in view of the changes to be applied to airline baggage rules. As a result, more than 200 airlines provided ATPCO with their baggage rules by October 2010. By March 2011, that number reached 300. Through the organisation of several Task Forces, the overall industry has been involved, including airlines, GDSs and Departure Control System Providers (DCS), as well as DOT. ABR gained momentum throughout its duration, as demonstrated by the increasing number of participants in each of the Task Force meetings. The last and ongoing stage is focussing on the involvement of the DCS providers, who have worked on their roadmap for implementation over the next months. In parallel, solutions have been developed and are delivered by several system providers including ATPCO to calculate excess baggage charges at check-in level. QA takes Boeing EFF Qatar Airways 777 fleet is first to transmit day-of-flight information directly to Electronic Flight Bag Boeing announced early this week that Qatar Airways will be the launch customer for Boeing's new Electronic Flight Folder (EFF).The carrier will install EFF on their entire fleet of Boeing 777s, making it the first in the world to transmit day-of-flight data such as flight plans and weather information directly to the 777 Class 3 Electronic Flight Bag (EFB). Qatar Airways will also install the Electronic Flight Folder on their future Boeing 787 fleet, making it the first airline to deploy such advanced operational software on both models. The carrier will begin using EFF in 2012. EFF is a software application that runs on an airplane's Electronic Flight Bag, allowing pilots to conduct route briefing and log flight progress directly on EFB. The range of EFF applications helps the airline achieve ground report efficiency and reduce or eliminate paper printing, handling and storage costs. "Qatar Airways is pleased to take part in the development and introduction of EFF across its Boeing fleet," said Raed Ayoub, Qatar Airways vice president Flight Operations Technical. The airline will continue to work jointly with Boeing to further develop aircraft systems and applications that take advantage of technological innovation to enhance safety and increase operational efficiency.
