Cairo airport US$5 tax increase not yet in effect

A $5 increase to the tax travelers pay when flying through Cairo International Airport has yet to be implemented, Elhamy al-Zayat, chairman of the Egyptian Tourism Federation, told Mada Masr.

Zayat, who also sits on the pricing committee at the Ministry of Civil Aviation, said the increase hasn’t yet been put into effect, as no directive has been given since it was proposed two weeks ago.

“We’re adding facilities to the airport, including reconstructing one of the runways, so this is why we proposed the tax increase,” Zayat told Mada Masr.

The tax increase would only be applied to Cairo airport, and not any of the other airports that receive a higher number of tourists, he said. Travelers already pay a $20 tax fee in their ticket price.

Cairo International Airport only receives about five percent or less of Egypt’s total number of tourists, Zayat said.

The number of tourists arriving in Egypt dropped by nearly 30 percent year-on-year in January to 642,197 from 903,445 in January 2013, according to the state-owned Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics.

Tourism represents 11.3 percent of Egypt’s gross domestic product and 19.3 percent of its foreign currency reserves, according to a June report by the State Information Service.