The national carrier EgyptAir resumed operation to Tokyo on Sunday after a long suspension of the direct service between Egypt and Japan. Amirah Ibrahim reports The wide body aircraft, a new B777-300 colored with the flag carrier's logo, the famous head of the god Horus, took off from Cairo International TB3 heading to Narrate airport at the far point of the Far East, Japan. EgyptAir is resuming operations to Japan hoping to revive one of its most vital markets that had been damaged badly over the past 15 months.� On Sunday, the new B777-300 took off to mark the reopening of the direct service between Cairo and Tokyo. On the wide body aircraft were only 46 passengers, including the official delegation of tourism civil employees headed by Tourism Minister Fakhry Abdel Nour. Airline Chairman Ayman Nasr joined the opening flight. "The Japanese tourist traffic heading to Cairo was one of the highest before the 25 January revolution," explained Abdel Nour as he was leaving from Cairo International. "We were attracted to cooperate by such a strong desire and extreme welcome of Japanese tourism officials to reopen the direct service and resume operation between both countries." Abdel Nour took advantage of the occasion to remind the Japanese government to cancel the travel warning it had issued following the 25 January uprising in Egypt. Japanese tourists were officially advised to avoid traveling to Egypt due to the unrest events that followed the revolution. "The flag carrier has proved to be a real national company that mainly cares about the good of the national economy. Over the past year, EgyptAir moved quickly and adopted many procedures to encourage tourism to Egypt. In cooperation with the Tourism Authority, the carrier transferred dozens of tourist delegations from Europe, Asia and the Middle East to examine the safety and security conditions. Unfortunately the crime record is still higher than before." The return flight arrived in Cairo on Tuesday, but this time with 264 passengers on board.�According to Nasr, the majority of the passengers coming from Tokyo were traveling beyond Cairo as transit passengers. "We are ambitious to retain the normal movement to Tokyo route," commented Nasr. "We are back with two flights weekly which is far behind our previous operation, but we hope we will be able to increase it to four flights soon," he added. The Tourism Ministry has been exerting efforts to persuade the Japanese government to remove the travel ban, but only succeeded to reduce it from a ban to a warning.� EgyptAir has been working in the Japanese market since 1962 when the governments of both countries signed a joint agreement to facilitate the air transport business. Ironically, the national carrier is celebrating its 50th year in the Japanese market with a challenging travel warning to Japanese travellers who seek to visit Egypt.�
