CAIRO: Embattled national carrier EgyptAir said Sunday it was offering to lease 25 of its newest aircraft to other carriers, in a bid to offset staggering losses linked to the unrest that led more than 200,000 tourists to flee the country. The company said in a statement that it was also offering to provide crew to staff the planes, which it was making available to fellow members of the Star Alliance network of international carriers. EgyptAir has struggled throughout the anti-government protests, which began on Jan. 25 and continued for 18 days before president Hosni Mubarak stepped down. The airline has canceled about 75 percent of its flights and seen little incoming traffic. The chairman of EgyptAir Holding Co., the parent company for the airline, said 40 percent of the carrier's fleet has been grounded. Hussein Massoud also said the company is losing about 80 percent of its projected revenue. Tourism accounts for about 5 percent of Egypt's gross domestic product. Figures released by the government's statistics bureau showed that 210,000 tourists fled the country in the last week of January and that cancellations for February were depriving Egypt of about $825 million in revenue. To further reduce costs, Massoud said the carrier was looking at cutting working hours, no longer offering board members stipends to attend the meetings and "opening the door for (employees) to take leaves of absence without pay." It would also allow employees to work half-time, and was canceling some flights that had seen little passenger traffic even before the unrest. Massoud did not specify which aircraft the company was offering to lease. He also did not provide details on the price the company was seeking or the duration of the proposed contract.
