Travellers' Checks | EgyptAir set to return to Hong Kong, connecting city with Cairo once again
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One of Africa’s oldest airlines, EgyptAir is expected to return to Hong Kong with twice-weekly flights from Cairo, from September. The carrier first touched down here – from Cairo via Karachi, Bombay and Bangkok, on its way to Tokyo – in 1962, when it was called United Arab Airlines (UAA).
In July that year, one of its de Havilland Comet jet airliners (Flight MS869) crashed on the way from Hong Kong to Bangkok, killing all 26 passengers and crew. Another UAA Comet (also MS869) went down further along the same route while approaching Bombay almost exactly a year later. All 63 people on board were killed.
UAA was consequently forced to abandon its only East Asia route owing to a lack of long-haul aircraft. The carrier was back in Hong Kong by 1971, with a new name – EgyptAir – and maintained flights throughout most of the 1970s.
Like those first flights from the 60s, EgyptAir’s new Cairo service will be coming and going via Bangkok, with an extension of its long-established MS960 and MS961 Cairo-Bangkok-Cairo flights. The latter is scheduled to depart Hong Kong for Bangkok and Cairo on Tuesday and Saturday evenings at 8.50pm, starting on September 18, with MS960 from Cairo returning on Monday and Friday evenings at 11.10pm.