Airlines change Cairo flight schedules

Cairo, January 29, 2011

US carrier Delta Air Lines suspended service to Cairo indefinitely amid the civil unrest in Egypt, and some European carriers modified their flight schedules to the country.

Delta also said on its Twitter site on Friday that its last flight would leave Cairo on January 29 and the resumption of service to the city was to be determined.

Atlanta-based Delta operates one daily flight from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport to Cairo.   

EgyptAir said it will operate flights unless they conflict with a curfew that was imposed on Friday from 6 pm (1600 GMT) to 7 a.m (0500 GMT) after a day of violent anti-government protests.

'An official in EgyptAir company said that EgyptAir flights are continuing but he confirmed that the flights during the curfew time would be stopped,' state TV reported.

British Airways postponed its daily flight from London to Cairo on Friday because it would have arrived during the night curfew imposed due to mass protests in the Egyptian capital, the airline said.

A 'couple of hundred' passengers booked on the flight would stay in hotels until Saturday when it is expected to depart from London's Heathrow airport, said a spokesman for BA, part of International Airlines Group.

BA plans to continue flying to Cairo but will adjust its schedules so that its flights arrive and depart from Cairo in daylight, the spokesman said. The carrier operates one return flight to Cairo per day.   

A Lufthansa spokesman said the German airline had cancelled  one flight due to leave Cairo for Frankfurt at 4:50 am (0250 GMT) on Saturday because of the curfew.   

Two flights are due to leave for Cairo on Saturday, from Frankfurt and from Munich. The spokesman said Lufthansa would make a decision on those flights on Saturday.   

Air France changed its schedule for flights to Cairo so that planes land and take off to avoid the curfew hours, a spokeswoman said. One flight was canceled on Saturday but otherwise it was business as usual until further notice, she said. - Reuters

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