Minister of Civil Aviation, Hossam Kamal told reporters Sunday that Egypt is nearing a deal for eight Boeing B737-800 planes in the upcoming days, Al-Masry Al-Youm News reported. Kamal revealed that the talks with BOC Aviation Company are going smoothly, as an initial agreement is almost reached and procedures are nearly completed. He explained that the government pays great importance to increasing and modernizing the state-owned Egypt Air's fleet and improve the level of service provided to customers in order to maintain competition with international airline companies. Furthermore, he pointed out that this deal comes within the first phase of the government's plan to develop and modernize Egypt Air's fleet by 2025. Egypt Air has 20 Boeing B737-800 planes, of which it contracted for eight of them in 2006 and 12 planes in 2009, whereas the last plane of the fleet was delivered in September 2012, the minister added. He stressed that Boeing B737-800 plane is one of the best-selling models around the world and it is operational in Europe, Middle East and Africa.