Hurghada airport is first up for private management, civil aviation minister says
Sameh El-Hefny said pre-qualification of the bidding consortia is finished and tender documents are being drawn up. The airports are not being sold and no award date has been given.
24 October 2026
Hurghada International Airport is the first of 11 Egyptian airports being offered to private companies to manage, operate and develop, and the process has reached the stage of preparing tender documents.
Civil Aviation Minister Sameh El-Hefny said the ministry had begun offering Hurghada as the initial model after completing the pre-qualification of the consortia competing for the project, and that the relevant bodies were now drawing up the request-for-proposals documents before the competition is completed and a strategic partner chosen to manage, operate and develop the airport. He was speaking at a session of Egypt Forum 2026 on foreign-currency resources and debt management on Thursday 22 October.
El-Hefny said the programme does not involve selling the airports, which remain state-owned assets, and that the aim of the partnership is to draw on private technical and operating expertise and investment. The rights of staff at the airports covered would be preserved, he said, with training to international standards.
Which airports are in the programme
Cairo International is excluded. Alongside Hurghada, the minister named Sphinx, Sharm el-Sheikh, Borg El Arab, Luxor, Aswan, Sohag, Assiut, Abu Simbel, El Alamein and Marsa Matrouh. Marsa Alam airport is not on the list.
Who would own the airport
Egypt signed an agreement with the International Finance Corporation in March 2025 for advice on introducing public-private partnership at the 11 airports. Under it the IFC supports the civil aviation ministry and the Egyptian Holding Company for Airports and Air Navigation in preparing a competitive tender for a strategic partner to modernise, maintain and operate Hurghada airport, with ownership staying with the holding company.
The model for the other ten airports is still being settled, and the studies allow for offering them one by one or grouped into investment packages.
El-Hefny put the wider target at more than 122 million airport passengers a year by 2030, against about 73 million now.
No date has been given for issuing the tender documents, completing the competition or handing over operation of Hurghada airport, and no competing consortium has been named.