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every day tens of thousands of websites are launched onto the worldwide web of
course this fact held true throughout February 2020 when just another one of
these countless domains appeared online but what's interesting about this
particular lonely spot on the Internet is that it was registered to developers
in the United Kingdom who were subcontracting for the little-known
phantom airline Air Sinai a single route secretive air service operating between
the cities of Cairo in Egypt and Tel Aviv in Israel it was the first time air
Sinai had appeared officially on the Internet and for the scarce few who were
in the know about Air Sinai it was a real shock so what's so special about
this ghost airline and how come up until now it was impossible to book a flight
without being transferred endlessly between travel agents and you'd have to
pay in concealed cash envelopes
under the control of the United States in 1979 Egypt and Israel signed an
agreement called the egypt-israel peace treaty this agreement stipulated that
for the first time an Arab nation was obligated to maintain civilian transport
routes to Israel while the clause was damaging to Egypt given Israel's tenuous
relationship with its neighbors and the complicated interfaith relations of the
area no one said Egypt couldn't run the air
routes secretly and that's exactly what they did
Egypt faced boycotting from other Arab nations if it publicly disclosed the
opening of air routes between Cairo and Tel Aviv so air Sinai was discretely set
up in 1982 providing transport along a single route back and forth between
Egypt and Israel the airline used planes owned by Egypt air the main commercial
air service in the country an air cyanine quickly became known as a
phantom service to those who were even aware it existed at all the process of
getting a flight ticket on air Sinai was less than stellar
if you've ever complained about the prices of plane tickets or that your
flight was canceled just remember that Air Sinai Flyers in the 80s and 90s
often had to spend weeks communicating with various contacts in Egypt air
before journeying to a travel office to pay extortionate prices in cash carried
in sealed envelopes in return for a 50s style yellow slip and that wasn't it
getting a hold of an agent was an ordeal in itself when emails were introduced
the requirements did become slightly less tight and customers could
communicate with an agent to receive details about their flight but they
still had to pay via international wire transfer sometimes only in u.s. dollars
flights to Tel Aviv were not displayed on Billboard's in Cairo's Airport and
flyers had to speak to an agent in person to obtain directions these
usually led them to an obscure street corner where a bus would carry them to
an unmarked aircraft for multiple decades this was how Air Sinai operated
and for the few people wishing to travel between Egypt and Israel there
no other way the process was in every way very hush-hush and consumers just
had to suck it up in 2002 Air Sinai stopped being
recognized as its own entity and fell into a wet lease like agreement with
EgyptAir becoming what is called a paper airline they had no planes staff or
courts of their own everything was owned by the parent company Egypt air you
think that was fairly straightforward but you'd be wrong because Egypt air
didn't even officially announce that air Sinai was there legally it was on its
own but Air Sinai and Egypt air were essentially the same things Egypt air
pretended there was no connection and continued the operation of Air Sinai
under extreme privacy through the early 21st century obtaining a ticket was
still incredibly difficult and shrouded in mystery one YouTube video from
Charles Huang detailed numerous attempts to book a flight through multiple travel
agencies back in 2015 for a long time air sinai fleet consisted of two
Boeing 737-500 both of course owned by Egypt air these planes were reportedly
white and unmarked bearing no names or logos and only registration numbers they
looked very similar to the CIA's 737 unmarked planes that are used to
transfer terrorists and high-risk criminals to undisclosed detention camps
Janet Airlines uses the same aircraft to carry employees in and out of the
top-secret military base area 51 Flyers on Air Sinai in the past years have
reported that the airlines have replaced the Boeing 737s with the Embraer e170
and the Airbus to 2,200 these planes now resemble other Egypt airplanes due to
these sky-blue paintings on the body but they're still unmarked without any name
or low such is the conspiracy and mystery
around air sign I that some have suggested that the Egyptian military or
Secret Service checks the passengers on flights between Cairo and Israel and
that's very likely Egypt air runs the flights in a very private manner so as
to keep public and media attention to a minimum those traveling on the plane get
a feeling like they've done something wrong and that they're being taken to
some top-secret location why such lengthy efforts are made to conceal the
airline and hide it from the public as much as possible is a very difficult
question to answer but the general consensus is that it's due to the
political climate between Egypt and Israel the majority of Egypt airs
customer base is Arab and if the airline publicly announces its relationship with
the flights to Israel it might lose some of its customers because of tension
among people so there exists a concealed airline with a different name this may
sound like the most plausible explanation a reddit thread dated
December 2019 holds that the confidential aspect of Air Sinai is so
that the Egyptian government is still able to blame Israel for supposedly
sending spies to their country other users have suggested that Egypt doesn't
want to commit to an official airline relationship with Israel in case the
political situation worsens in the future
in previous years several forums have chronicled posts by travelers seeking
help in booking a ticket on air Sinai some with success others not so much
Egypt air began announcing flights from Cairo to Tel Aviv on their Airport
boards in 2014 suggesting that they're taking steps to make the travel route
more public this possibility was given more credence by the unveiling of air
sinai new website earlier this year sparking minor but sudden attention
among those who knew of the airline while the website supposedly allows
anyone to book flights between Cairo and Tel Aviv the site is completely double
of any contact information to Egypt or Israel the company has no apparent
social media presence and there's a big disclaimer to tell people that they have
no relation to the actual airline a round trip of a total of 2 hours and 45
minutes of flying an economy class costs an exorbitant 549 euros but because this
is the only airline flying nonstop between Egypt and Israel some people
just don't have any other option even though the launch of fly Air Sinai calm
may be a step towards publicity many Internet users have still noted how
obscure the airline is the only way a customer can get ahold of an employee is
through an email address obtained by word-of-mouth and navigating to the
plane is a less than Swift and easy process
EgyptAir goes an extra length to ensure the privacy of Air Sinai because in
personal or professional world privacy and security cannot be compromised with
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