Star Alliance, the world biggest airlines group, activated its efforts in Cairo over the week.�Star CEO�Mark Shwap arrived on a two-day visit to Cairo where he met on Monday with the chairman of EgyptAir, a member airline at Star, over the international challenges to the 27 member airlines. "In light of the fierce competition within air transport industry, which is subject to continuous changes and development, the alliance is looking into the possibility to add more vital and important points to its network, which currently reaches 1300 airports in 189 countries," explained Hossam Kamal, EgyptAir chairman and CEO. "Improving the services introduced to our clients is on top of our concerns," he added. Kamal expressed his administration's great ambition to cooperate with sister airlines in the future. "We believe on win-win situation. We seek to increase code share agreements with more member airlines. On the same time, we are keen to go on with upgrading, developing and modernizing services over all fields. In this regard, we have proved a strict commitment to international standards and criteria that enable us to pass all inspections successfully. We moreover achieved a distinguished quality accreditation from international bodies related to the issue of safety and quality." Shwap paid a visit to the main airport, Cairo International, where the national carrier operates its flights with ambitious plans to turn the airport into a hub. "I believe Star Alliance enjoys an excellent opportunity to compete in Cairo, having EgyptAir as a member airline," he stated. "The main airport is serving our members very well, acting as the gateway to Africa and the Middle East. The flag carrier, EgyptAir, is committed to all requirements set by the alliance tin hat it achieved 97 per cent of those requirements in 2011 although it had been such a tough year for the airline," Shwap indicated. Three days before Shwap's meeting with Kamal, Star alliance held a celebrity meeting in Cairo to enhance the growing cooperation with Egyptian travel agents. According to Yasser El-Ramly, EgyptAir director, commercial department, the alliance invited a wide variety of the travel agents who desired to provide their customers with the distinguished services offered by Star Alliance. "Travel agents and tour operators can benefit out of the joint cooperation platform existed among the alliance members, the lounges at all airports, loyal programmes and luggage services," El-Ramly indicated. The celebrity event was attended by a number of Star member airlines, some operating flights from Cairo and some not. Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Swiss Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Aegean Airlines, LOT and Turkish Airlines are operating from Cairo. Others included United Airlines, Continental Airlines, Air Canada and TAM. Star Alliance was established in 1997, while the national carrier, EgyptAir was accepted as a member airline in 2007. The alliance at present includes 27 airlines operating 21,000 flights daily to 1290 destinations and transferring 653 million passengers annually.
