Flights in Egypt

I am hoping to go to Egypt next year and I hope to organise my own itinerary rather than dealing with travel agents.

I have no probems with booking accommodation and flights to Egypt from Ireland but I am finding it extremely difficult to book internal flights e.g. Cairo to Luxor.

Does anybody know a good website for this; I have tried Egyptair's website which is next to useless.

I think that there are no discounted internal flights available for foreigners ... only full fare flights (which are fairly pricey) ... so really no need to book flights in advance ... you may as well wait until you get there as they're going to cost the same.

Egyptair i'm sure have an office in London - you could I guess call them if you really wanted to book flights in advance.

(I think the train is a decent option for Cairo-Luxor also ... given the price of flights maybe it would be better to go in the fancy sleeper train which would be cheaper than a flight and save you a night's hotel also.)

In Luxor There are LOADS of Tour Operators beside the Old Winter Palace Hotel... Jolies + Karnak are 2 of the better companies. Book a Day trip to Cairo through them with a Guide for bout E170 (which includes Flight, Lunch, Enterance Fees + Transfers). It is a great day as myself and g/f did it when over there in September.

I went to Egypt last year and also wanted to organise my own itinerary, but in fact I regretted doing so. I booked DUB-LHR-CAI online, but could only book CAI-LXR through a travel agent - as far as I remember, this was with Luxair. However, the flight timetable was subject to change, and we ended up getting the tickets only a couple of days before flying out. We also had to re-confirm our flights by phone while in Egypt, which was hassle, but necessary because the flight time was again changed. If we'd been going through a tour op, this would have been someone else's hassle, rather than ours.

We'd been warned about, but were still overwhelmed by, the number of hawkers at CAI offering taxi/bus transfers to our hotel. It would have been great to have someone holding a board with our names on it!

Also, many of the day trips you might take operate according to strict timetables, as convoys of tourists are given armed escorts across the desert. I'd mistakenly thought we could hire a driver and go at our own pace/time, but if the convoy leaves at 8am, then that's what time you go at - though you might prefer to have a private car rather than share a minibus with others.

I was there in April 2005, which was about 3 weeks before a bombing in Cairo. This may have led to heightened security at the time. Although my preference has always been for independent travel, this was one trip where I felt it would have been much easier and more relaxing to go through an operator. As we didn't even consider going through a tour op, I can't comment on how prices might have compared.

We went to Egypt in January 2005, and I can confirm that the security is always high for tourists, and the convoy thing is a permanent feature. Normally, we make our own arrangements and much prefer not to be tied to a group, but for Egypt we went with a tour group [Exodus - very good, use local suppliers as much as they can, have ethical tourism policy] otherwise it was just too complicated. We met an English couple in Luxor, and they said they'd found it very difficult to travel around, and had been constrained as to where they could see as a result.

The overnight train is a decent option: we got that from Cairo to Luxor and it's a lot less expensive than flying. Air fares internally in Egypt are like the bad old days of monopolistic flag-carriers.

I was in Egypt last January... Booked the whole trip on line… a great trip. Lots of different websites gave me what I needed. I took the sleeper train to Luxor and then back from Aswan to Cairo. I also got a good deal on a four day cruise from luxor to Aswan . It included trips to the Valley of the Kings, temple of Karnack etc etc. Excellent value as it included a very knowledgeable Egyptologist as a tour guide. Entertainment on board was a bit forced however the tours and the chance to sail leisurely
along the banks of the Nile made it worthwhile. It also made it possible to avoid all the hawkers, although I did enjoy the chance to bargain with the boatmen who followed the ship.

Enjoy the holiday!

Thanks for all the help. I am taking on board the problems you mentioned with travelling independantly so I am now looking at travelling with Exodus or Gap etc. Though I would like to stick on 4/5 days at Sharm el Sheikh at the end to wind down. What is the best way to get there from Cairo?

Cairo to Sharm theres no train
You can take a bus there which is a fairly long trip from what i remember it was about 6-h hours
You can get a ferry from hurghada when it runs which doesnt take long a couple of hours and the bus to hurghada is about 5 hours i think
The guide books i read all seemed to disregard flying as too expensive etc in comparison to getting the bus ferry etc but id have to disagree after having my ferry cancelled a few days in a row

For the rest of the trip If you want to leave booking with a group before ya go it most hostels will organise a trip for you from cairo with your tickets for trains and accomodation etc booked
A couple i met paid about $150 each for desert trip cairo ->luxor ->aswan ->felucca back to cairo ..

I am going to Egypt on 18 December. I've booked all travel, except the train journey from Cairo to Luxor on 22 December (daytime train). After doing research on buying tickets the general message is that you need a great deal of patience to do this at the station in Cairo. The train company doesn't have a websit where you can book on line, and any tour agents that have been recomended on line haven't responded to my queries. My question is , has anyone any experience of buying tickets at Ramses Station, do you need to buy the tickets in advance, is is an easy thing to do? Thanks, geri.

I have done so yes (for a train to Alexandria not Luxor) - wasn't too hard really .. it may be different for overnight trains ... I vaguely recall the guidebook saying it would be hassle, but being pleasantly surprised in the end that it was actually fairly painless - i've been in far worse queues @ Heuston station!

I'm sure a local travel agent or your hotel could arrange the tickets for you for a (probably small) fee if it did turn out to be a hassle - though it's probably (as you seem to have found out) impractical to try to arrange this before you arrive.

It's quite possible (but I don't know) that tickets only go on sale closer to departure .. mightn't be possible to buy them now for travel in 6 weeks time.

While I was there last January tourists were not allowed take the day train to Luxor - had to take the overnight one for security reasons. There were armed guards on the train - as there are everywhere in Egypt. I booked mine in advance but the train wasn't full

I had a package holiday to Egypt last yr, the package company were organising trips up to Cairo from Luxor, worked out very expensive with them so we ended up booking our own with an Egyptian travel agency in Luxor worked out much cheaper - Got overnight sleeper train to Cairo picked up from train station by a guide (brought to pyramids, sphinx, museum & told history of everything) guide ferried us around all day in brand new mini bus - really enjoyable -

cant remember the name of the agency - it was beside the Thomas cook agency in luxor. Really small - Dont forget to haggle them!

Thanks guys for your replies. I must try to find some way to check and see if I can get the day train. Really wanted this instead of the sleeper as I believe the trip is very nice - follows along the nile for most of the journey.

This is a good site for train travel.. http://www.seat61.com/Egypt.htm

I was in Egypt in Oct , went with Budget travel.
Egypt is not a country to go 'independant' travelling in due
to security travel.Budget do good deals to Egypt which
you probably wont beat on price anyway.Everything is
organised safe and hassle free.I went to Luxor for a week,
picked up at the airport , brought on all tours by Budget,
transferred to El Gouna with Budget for the second week
doing a dat trip to Cairo.
staying at 5 star hotels in both resorts was 890 including all transfers/flights and breakfast everyday.

finbar said:

Egypt is not a country to go 'independant' travelling in due
to security travel.

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Not really sure that this is necessarily the case ... as far as I'm aware most if not all of the attacks against tourists in Egypt have been against buses with groups of tourists and large tourist resort hotels of the type used by Budget Travel etc.

I'm not sure I'd let the security situation put me off too much - and I'd be more worried (and even then not very worried) if I was in a big visible group of Western tourists.

I was in Egypt in July in 2005 with Budget Travel , great holiday we organised our own flights upto Cairo with a travel agency in Luxor , we had a private tour guide and mini van with great air con, There was bombings in Sharm El Sheik on the same morning we flew to Cairo , Security is always high there, We felt safe enough in Luxor, the staff at the hotels couldn't do enough for you

EvilDoctorK said:

Not really sure that this is necessarily the case ... as far as I'm aware most if not all of the attacks against tourists in Egypt have been against buses with groups of tourists and large tourist resort hotels of the type used by Budget Travel etc.

I'm not sure I'd let the security situation put me off too much - and I'd be more worried (and even then not very worried) if I was in a big visible group of Western tourists.

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It's more that you can't - as in are not permitted to - do things like rent a car and go off the beaten track because distance travel is either by air or within armed convoys. This includes on Nile cruises - we had a three day cruise as part of our trip, and it was only on the evening of the second day that I realised that there were two armed guards (tourist police or army - they're provided by the state, not the tour company) on the fore deck at all times.

You can wander around within the towns or cities (to a point anyway - although I've never felt so conspicuously white as when wandering around Cairo with the other half, looking for a sadly-mythical micro-brewery!), but travelling outside is well-monitored. Hotels, btw, have armed guards and metal detectors and luggage is screened, as well - and we weren't at the kind of luxury hotels which just might lay those on to make the well-heeled traveller feel extra cared-for.

Limited independence is possible, as evidenced by other experiences posted here - but I still reckon you can probably get the most out of a trip if you take at least a partial package, preferably with a tour guide included. Egyptian tour guides are, for the most part, highly qualified Egyptologists, and generally are also genuinely interested in explaining modern Egyptian/Arab/Muslim culture. Ours was fantastic, and also struck a good balance between running interference at the big sites where there are some pretty unscrupulous hawkers, and ensuring we got to meet Egyptians rather than just forming a small depressing two week Western enclave!