Marsa Alam Airport Logs Its Biggest Polish Charter Arrival, With 35 Flights Feeding Hotel Occupancy

Marsa Alam International Airport handled its largest arrival of Polish tourist flights to date on Tuesday, according to Youm7, while Tourism Daily News put the Polish traffic at 35 flights feeding hotel occupancy along the Red Sea coast.

Neither report names the airlines or tour operators involved, gives passenger numbers, or lists the Polish cities the flights departed from. The two reports also leave unclear whether the 35 flights all landed on the same day or make up a longer programme.

The arrivals land in the middle of the coast's peak summer season. Hurghada News reported earlier this month that Marsa Alam airport had logged its busiest week yet for European flight arrivals, and that a tourism industry figure put hotel occupancy in the resort at 95%.

Charter waves like this one are what the southern coast runs on. The hotels strung between Port Ghalib, Marsa Alam town and the road south fill largely from direct European flights rather than domestic traffic, and a concentrated block of arrivals shows up within days in dive-boat bookings, desert excursions and reef trips.

We have also reported that Travco is to manage three new hotels in Marsa Alam, adding 1,500 rooms — capacity that will need exactly this kind of flight programme to fill it.

For travellers flying in this week, the practical effect is a busy terminal and busy transfer roads. For anyone working in the resort, it is a strong late-August week — though neither report gives the total passenger figures that would put a number on it.