As the national carrier moves towards becoming a competitive international group, a new strategy aims to market affiliated airlines as well, reports Amirah Ibrahim Five years into its overhaul, EgyptAir aims to improve its inadequate marketing policies by establishing a new committee to apply a joint marketing strategy for its four affiliated airlines. "The airline plans to review [the performance of] its international and domestic network over the past five years, but in light of current alliances and large groups that have conquered the field, it becomes vital to coordinate with sister companies," according to Samir Imbabi, head of EgyptAir's Higher Committee for Joint Marketing (HCJM). "EgyptAir recently added a fourth airline to the group and strong cooperation among the four sisters is very important," Imbabi added. Five years ago, the national carrier was converted into a holding company and splintered into seven affiliated companies, each representing one of EgyptAir's main activities such as the airline, cargo, services, tourism, etc. Later, two more companies were created and a new airline for domestic flights was launched under the name EgyptAir Express. The domestic route airline began operations two months ago with a fleet of two A320s, which are projected to increase to six by March 2008. Flight destinations currently include the Red Sea cities of Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada, and later the southern cities of Luxor and Aswan will be added to the roster. Two years ago, EgyptAir forged a partnership with several Egyptian banks to establish AirCairo, a charter airline, and launched another joint venture with investors to establish Smart Aviation, a private jet airline for businessmen. AirCairo presently operates three planes which will soon be expanded to five aircraft, once two A320s are added to the fleet by October. Imbabi indicated that since the private jet business has shown such promise in Egypt, Smart Aviation is moving to expand its fleet. The airline currently operates one 10-seat aircraft, which will be supplemented with another aircraft in October and two more early next year. "The charter business has been very satisfactory over the last three years," noted the head of HCJM. "Demand is quickly outgrowing capacity and routes to destinations which are currently being offered, which at times causes problems because of short-notice requests, which do not give the carriers enough time to make arrangements." According to Imbabi, who is also chairman of EgyptAir's tourism company Karnak, even when an airline achieves the highest booking records there is still an average of 10-20 per cent of seats remaining unoccupied. These should be marketed to meet rising demand and increase revenues, he suggested. "To apply a joint marketing strategy means to provide accurate input, including information about the booking systems of the four airlines so HCJM can easily supervise the market, review demands, customer requests and coordinate availability within the fleets of affiliated airlines," explained Imbabi. "Thus, we would best utilise our resources." Four years ago, EgyptAir was forced to withdraw from several European, Asian and African markets -- shutting down 14 international routes -- due to losses. According to Imbabi, the new strategy would allow the company to receive customer requests through any of the four airlines' booking systems. "Clients who desire to book a private jet or a charter flight would not need to contact the airline directly," he continued. "The new system would direct them to the e-booking or the call centre which is the committee's control system. If their preferences are not available, the system would file a request to see if the airline can operate extra flights or provide provisional flights to unscheduled routes." Imbabi noted that this system has for many years been used by large international carriers which include multiple sister airlines. And hence, EgyptAir will be moving closer to joining the world's largest airline alliance, Star Alliance, which includes 21 members.
