Egyptair has taken delivery of its first Airbus A350-900, the next step in its ongoing fleet transformation. The aircraft (SU-GGE), which flew for the first time last month, completed its four-hour delivery flight from Toulouse earlier today, touching down in the Egyptian capital shortly before 04:00 PM local time. The aircraft will be inspected by EgyptAir’s technical operations team, before starting life with the airline on trunk routes to London and Paris for crew familiarization flights.

EgyptAir ultimately plans to use the A350 for further intercontinental growth, specifically new routes to North America that will launch later this year. As a state-owned airline, EgyptAir’s fleet transformation is seen as vital to driving the country’s tourism industry, which has seen a pronounced upswing in recent years. The new aircraft and continued expansion of the carrier will go hand-in-hand with a massive $4.5 billion expansion of its base at Cairo International Airport.

The Delivery Of a New Widebody Type

Credit: Airbus

EgyptAir placed an initial order for ten A350-900s at the Dubai Airshow 2023, stating that it was choosing the type to underpin its planned expansion to North America. Airbus later announced that the carrier had added another six aircraft to its order, taking the total to 16. Deliveries are expected to occur in two batches, with up to six scheduled to arrive with the carrier this year and all 10 of the initial order by the end of next year. The remaining six are expected from 2030 onward.

Initially, the plan is for the A350 to replace the Boeing 777-300ERs that the carrier currently uses predominantly on its North American routes. EgyptAir currently flies from Cairo to four North American destinations:

Captain Ahmed Adel, EgyptAir’s CEO, confirmed to Simple Flying on the sidelines of the 2025 Paris Air Show that this year will be focused on taking delivery of the A350 and phasing out the 777s from November. Following that, the focus will shift to the addition of new routes, with Los Angeles International Airport being a top contender. He said:

“The first batch of seven A350s is going to complement the network and work in tandem with the 787s because the A350 is higher capacity. Basically, they’re going to work on the same network. Once we get north of eight aircraft, we’re going to start opening new routes. One of the main routes on the menu will be LAX, because the numbers look good, but we need to have at least six or seven A350s to operate that.”

Los Angeles to Cairo is not insignificant in terms of demand. Although a non-stop service has never operated between the two cities, it was the Egyptian capital’s third-busiest origin-and-destination pair in the United States, and the largest unserved in North America. According to information from OAG Traffic Analyzer, 73,000 people traveled round-trip between the two points during 2025.

Egyptair’s Fleet Transformation

Credit: Simple Flying

The new A350s are the cornerstone of EgyptAir’s ongoing fleet transformation, with the airline already operating four other types from both Airbus and Boeing. Following the addition of eight leased Boeing 787-9s to the fleet in recent years, the A350 represents the carrier’s ongoing efforts to not only expand its widebody fleet, but also transform it with newer, more efficient types.

With 350 seats in a two-class layout, the A350 is a natural replacement for the five 777-300ERs that are currently in operation, as well as the obvious choice for a new 6,600 nautical mile long-haul route to LAX. What remains to be seen is what EgyptAir does with the remainder of its widebody fleet, notably its A330s.

Currently, only two of its five A330-200s are in operation, with two of them undergoing conversion to freighters, and the A330-300s are used primarily on regional routes to Lagos, Mumbai, Dubai, and as far afield as Johannesburg. Egypt’s Ministry of Civil Aviation has said that it aims for a fleet of 125 aircraft by 2030, and given that the current confirmed order book (16 A350s and 18 737 MAX 8s) will bring the fleet to close to 100 aircraft, this would suggest more widebody orders in the near future. The debate is whether the airline will opt for additional 787s, or seek to add the Airbus A330-900 as a direct replacement.

Related

Egyptair Eyes US Expansion With Airbus A350 Order

The first A350s are expected to arrive in weeks and will help Egyptair update its fleet and expand flights to the United States.

Hand-In-Hand With The Expansion Of Cairo Airport

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

EgyptAir’s expansion is closely tied to the growth of Egyptian tourism. According to Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, the country welcomed 19 million tourists in 2025, an increase of 21% over the preceding year. And as Adel explains, the fate of the airline and the tourism industry are intrinsically linked:

“Whenever there’s a boom in tourism, we benefit from it. Our traffic is not necessarily all tourism, but we certainly benefit from it. The government has very big plans and aspirations for tourism, and it affects us positively.”

But the weak point in this relationship has historically been Cairo International Airport. As the busiest airport in Africa, it is notoriously congested, designed in the 1960s for up to 20 million passengers, but handling more than 30 million last year. Fortunately, the Egyptian government has approved a $4.5 billion transformation program as a cornerstone of Egypt’s national strategy to attract 30 million tourists annually.

The centerpiece of the plan is the construction of a new Terminal 4, which will be able to handle an initial 30 million passengers per year, expanding to 40 million in future phases. This will bring the airport’s total capacity to roughly 60 million passengers, tripling its current designed capacity. The construction is expected to be completed by 2030, and will also include the addition of a new runway, as well as the development of new cargo operations with an initial capacity of 1 million tons annually.