Cairo International Airport's new shuttle service is scheduled to be tested next week. The airport is following in the footsteps of other international airports, such as Paris' Charles De Gaulle Airport, by introducing a fully-automated electric railway train shuttle. The shuttle will commute between the airport's three terminals, the airport mall and the parking facility. The shuttle service will be made available to travelers in mid-2011 and is expected to transport some 80,000 passengers during its daily 20-hour shift, at an average of 4000 passengers an hour. According to Ibrahim Manaa, head of the Egyptian Holding Company for Airports and Air Navigation, the new shuttle service--which cost a total of LE480 million--was partly self-financed, with the remaining funds having been secured from the state-run Bank of Egypt. In a statement on Thursday, Manaa said that the service would be provided to passengers free of charge. He explained that shuttles would depart from the main station every two and a half minutes. Cairo Airport Company Chairman Hassan Mahmoud Rashed said that a French company had been employed to implement the shuttle service, which, he noted, would represent the first of its kind in Africa and the Middle East. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
