“It will also increase demand for land and marine transport,” they said.
Earlier Alexandria and Al-Masria airlines suspended their flights between the Kingdom and Egypt as a result of market pressure that cut down their profits.
The General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) adopted 10 years ago an open-air policy between the Kingdom and Egypt, easing operational restrictions on airlines of both countries. There is heavy traffic of passengers between the two countries. People of limited income, especially expatriates working in the Kingdom and other Gulf countries, benefit from low-cost airlines.
Farid Al-Daeji of Balagha Travel & Tourism Company said the withdrawal of low-cost airlines would cause problems in the travel market. “It will reduce competition between the main service providers. As a result the passengers, especially those having limited income, will suffer,” he said.
Al-Daeji said the low-cost airlines in the region have been successful in attracting a large number of passengers despite their comparatively small age. He estimated the number of people traveling between Saudi Arabia and Egypt every year at more than 10 million including a large number of tourists and pilgrims.
Sami Mahmoud Attar, chairman of Attar Travel, said low-cost airline companies in the region had failed to develop themselves during the past years due to a lack of strategic investors. He said Bahrain Air, which has been operating between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and 10 other stations in the Middle East, did not achieve speedy growth due to the same reason.
Rida Abdul Maula, an Egyptian working in the Kingdom for the last 30 years, said people like him had preferred low-cost airlines because they offer seats at cheaper rates. “If these airlines are withdrawing from the market, then we have to depend on land and marine transport means,” he pointed out. He said fares of Saudi Arabian Airlines and Egypt Air were three times more than those of low-cost airlines.
