Emirates marks 40 years on Cairo route with passenger and cargo totals

In a release dated 25 October, Emirates said it marked four decades of operations in Egypt at a gala in Cairo, using the anniversary to detail the scale of its passenger and cargo links through the city. The airline says its Cairo service began in April 1986, less than a year after the carrier launched, with three flights a week.

The company now operates five daily flights between Dubai and Cairo, served by Airbus A380 and Boeing 777 aircraft. Across the 40-year period, it reports more than 13.2 million passengers on close to 50,000 flights between the two cities. Those are company-reported cumulative totals for the route, not annual traffic figures or a measure of Egypt’s whole aviation market.

The Dubai hub also connects travellers from Egypt onward to close to 140 destinations across six continents, the release says. It names Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Seoul, Osaka and Hong Kong among popular destinations for travellers from Egypt, and lists Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Seoul, Osaka and Shanghai among important sources of travel into Cairo. The two lists describe different directions of travel and are not a ranking of route volumes.

Emirates SkyCargo says it carried over 170,000 tonnes of exports and imports between Cairo and the world during the last five years, using the belly-hold capacity of passenger flights. The airline lists fresh fruit and vegetables, seafood and other perishables among Egyptian exports moved on its network. Strawberries are particularly active from November through March, with the Middle East, Europe and East Asia identified as the main export markets.

Cargo entering Egypt includes electronics, pharmaceuticals and general cargo, according to the release. The company did not provide annual tonnage, a split between imports and exports, or values for the goods. Its five-year total therefore shows reported cumulative freight handled on this Cairo-linked activity, rather than a growth rate or a forecast.

The anniversary event took place at Cairo’s Grand Egyptian Museum and included Egyptian tourism, civil aviation and airport officials alongside Emirates executives and travel partners. The announcement also points to an Emirates Lounge at Cairo International Airport, opened in 2018, and an Emirates World retail store opened in January 2025. These service details describe the carrier’s Cairo presence; the release does not give customer counts for either facility.