The national carrier moves to make the technical branch into a world maintenance centre. Meanwhile, reports Amirah Ibrahim, the carrier is about to launch a new online tourism project Confidence in maintenance EGYPT'S aviation sector has recently attracted the attention of the world's two most important aviation international bodies; the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA). ICAO approved last week the Egyptian Faculty for Pilots, affiliated to the Egyptian Aviation Academy (EAA), as a regional centre for the Middle East and Africa. The approval, the first in 20 years, followed the implementation of a joint project for cooperation and technical support between ICAO and EAA. "After extensive inspections and revision missions by ICAO experts, the international organisation became convinced that our facilities and programmes fulfil the training requirements of a regional centre, as well as meeting the quality and safety criteria," stated EAA President Hassan Mohamed Hassan. The joint project will continue in the next phase to assist EAA in obtaining certification by ICAO of other faculties, such as Air Controllers and Aviation Management. Meanwhile, IATA signed an agreement with EgyptAir few days later approving the national carrier's training facilities as an IATA regional centre to train flight crew and staff. Magdi Sabri, IATA representative for the Middle East and Africa, highlighted this important development for the carrier's training sector. "EgyptAir was among the first airlines to move seriously towards applying our recommendations with regards to e-ticketing," stated Sabri. "They now issue only one-third of total tickets in paper, while the other two-thirds are e-tickets." The IATA agreement will bring more investment to the training sector, which is expected to attract the business of both Arab and African carriers. Fingertip tourism now on the Internet Karnak, EgyptAir's Tourism Company, will be selling tourist packages to travellers via the Internet by next April. This will allow clients to select travel packages and manage all their bookings themselves. With the help of Amadeus Services and Consulting, the national carrier is preparing a new system which allows travellers to plan their trips from A to Z online. Amadeus worked with the airline on launching the e-booking engine in February, which allowed passengers to book their flight, pay and print their tickets at any computer terminal. EgyptAir and Amadeus held two workshops focussing on developing the tourism business, to begin contracting procedures. "We met to discuss contracting details and to set a timetable for applying the new system," started Karnak Chairman Samir Imbabi. The company has been engaged in negotiations with Amadeus for four months to develop its current sales system, and provide advanced applications on a par with the most advanced systems in the world. "So far, our systems are local and internal," explained Imbabi. "We work using traditional applications such as faxes and e-mails from individuals or travel agents. This, of course, has limited our market and delayed our expansion plans because we do not have easy access to service clients abroad." Over the past two years, booking systems have been upgraded and the number of travel agents abroad has increased from seven to 28 in 21 countries. Domestically, Karnak has 12 offices in Egypt, five of which are in Cairo. A study conducted by Amadeus on EgyptAir's tourism business showed that at present Karnak sells its packages via agents who define the package content based on customer requests. Routine steps then follow, sending a fax to the production department, which gives a price quote, confirms the booking, and payment is then handled either by a cashier or accountant. Hence, sales agents do not perform their jobs because the production team does it for them, instead of focussing on production tasks such as securing the best deals and packages for Karnak. The result, cited the study, is that inventory is not fully maintained and pricing is not up-to-date. The study also highlighted the absence of accurate data on Karnak's business operations such as volume per package type, per customer segment, per sales channel and per region. Therefore, the business strategy mainly relies on perceived numbers, rather than real numbers, which may lead to inaccurate business decisions. Once the new system is fully operational next April, the entire system will be revolutionised. "The new system will provide a dossier structure regarding sales details, invoicing and payment information, analytical accounting and customer documents," revealed Imbabi. "Most importantly, we can then go online." The new application, Amadeus Leisure Solution (ALS), will enable clients to select or even build their own tourist packages. Travel agents will have passwords to use the IBE to manage bookings. "My expectations are that within the coming two years the tourism industry worldwide will mainly rely on net engines," predicted Imbabi. "Karnak achieved 186,000 tourist nights in the 2006/2007 fiscal year; with the online sales system, we expect a 50 per cent increase in business." According to Imbabi, applying the new system will drastically change agreements with hotels and proposed packages, in order to meet the desires of clients and deliver immediate positive responses for online booking. "But it's not just about a new application," noted Imbabi. "A key success factor will also be the ability to absorb this radical change. Thus, we will start by upgrading our manpower and training the staff as soon as contract negotiations are concluded."
