Egypt is a big country. Obviously it’s not as big as the USA or Russia or China, but it’s still bigger than most first-time visitors realize. Also, the major sites and monuments that tourists all want to (and should!) see are more spread out than many realize. But not only are they spread out pretty far across the greater Cairo area, which is one of the largest cities in the entire world, but they’re also spread out geographically across the whole country, although primarily up and down the Nile. So if you want to see the major top-tier sites and monuments in Egypt, you have to take at least one domestic flight during your visit, and most likely two.
The overwhelming majority of international flights to and from Egypt go into and out of Cairo International Airport, which is on the far eastern side of the greater Cairo metropolitan area. That may be changing in the distant future because a brand new airport has already opened on the far western side of the Cairo metro area over to the northwest of Giza.
They’ve already started what’s essentially a public trial opening phase of that airport. But the trial phase of the new airport in Giza, which is called Sphinx International Airport (I know, not very creative, but it is what it is) is only seeing a few flights a day coming in mainly from one or two cities in Germany, Italy, and Saudi Arabia, and a few other places in Europe and the Middle East once or twice a week.
So not a lot of international air traffic into or out of that airport yet. They had some domestic flights going there too, but those seem to have been stopped for now. But for the foreseeable future, CAI will remain the main entry and exit point for about 95% of tourists visiting Egypt for historical tourism in the Nile Valley (those coming for Red Sea beach tourism are excluded from that guesstimate).
However, there are international flights into and out of four other smaller airports in Egypt, and the number of international flights going direct to those airports has actually been increasing a little lately. Those other four airports are in Sharm el Sheikh, at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula on the Red Sea; Hurghada, also on the Red Sea but on the mainland coast of Egypt; Alexandria, on Egypt’s northern Mediterranean coast; and Luxor, the center of what I call the land of tombs and temples in the south of Egypt.
For more on the best airlines to fly in and out of Cairo, see this Evergreen Egypt Travel Advice article, updated May 2025, entitled Getting to Egypt – Airline and Routing Options.
Even though 95% of visitors for historical tourism will still fly into and out of Cairo when they come to Egypt, the uptick in direct flights from Europe has opened up more options for travelers, especially on departure. Why departure and not arrival too? Well, technically you could certainly fly into one of those other cities around Egypt and start your trip around the country there. But most people – nearly everyone, in fact – starts their visit to Egypt in Cairo because that’s where the most famous historical monument in all of Egypt (and I would argue the entire world) is located… the Pyramids, which are just outside of Cairo’s western suburb of Giza.
You can basically consider Cairo and Giza one in the same like we do here in Egypt, which is why we sometimes refer to the area as the Cairo metropolitan area or the greater Cairo area. Technically Cairo is on the eastern bank of the Nile River and Giza is on the western bank, but we still call the whole area Cairo unless you’re giving directions to a local place and then you’ll need to be specific if it’s in Cairo or Giza because that determines which side of the river you’re going to or looking at on a map.
Think of Cairo and Giza kind of like Minneapolis and St. Paul, if you’re familiar with US geography, or Dallas and Fort Worth. Two cities merged into one large metropolitan area, sometimes referred to jointly but often just referenced by the more dominant or more famous city.
Now, although you’ve clearly heard of Cairo, you’ve also likely already heard of Giza too because of – and you know what I’m about to say, right – the Pyramids of Giza… THE most famous historical monuments in the entire world, I’d argue, and the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that has stood the test of time and is still left standing today. The Pyramids of Giza are likely the very reason you’ve wanted to visit Egypt your whole life and why you’re planning a trip here now, or at least thinking about it, I presume if you’re reading this particular article.
So this is why nearly everyone flies into Cairo and starts their visit around Egypt in Cairo and Giza – that’s where the pyramids are! Everyone wants to see the Pyramids of Giza first, and those are in the greater Cairo area. But most people also come BACK to Cairo to fly out too because, historically, Cairo International Airport has been the place where the most flights out of the country flew from, and where you could find the most departure options and best prices. So people generally always have and, mostly still do, fly into Cairo, tour the whole country from stem to stern, and then return to Cairo to fly back out of Egypt.
With that said, however, there are now some additional international departure options that don’t require you to travel all the way back to Cairo to fly out. The two main cities that would allow you to do a one-way journey around Egypt and not have to return back to Cairo at the end are Sharm el Sheikh and Hurghada. These are the main hubs for Egypt’s Red Sea coastal tourism. So when visitors to Egypt are ending their trips with a few days at a resort on the Red Sea, there are some decent options for beginning your journey back home directly from the Red Sea.
One of my favorite airlines to fly is Turkish Airlines for so many reasons. Whether you fly out of Cairo or not, you always have a connection in Istanbul on Turkish Airlines because that’s its hub. But Turkish Airlines also has daily flights out of both Hurghada, on Egypt’s mainland Red Sea coast, and Sharm el Sheikh, on Egypt’s Siani Peninsula Red Sea coast. So that makes it very easy and convenient to fly Turkish from wherever you’re from into Cairo to start your visit, tour the whole country, end at the Red Sea, and then fly out of Egypt directly from one of those two Red Sea hubs. Other airlines that fly out of both Hurghada and Sharm are SwissAir, EasyJet, Condor, British Airways, Austrian Airways, WizzAir, and a few other discount and budget airlines.
Turkish Airlines also flies out of Alexandria too, so even if you don’t want to spend time at a resort on the Red Sea at the end of your trip, if you’re interested in Greco-Roman history and are visiting Alexandria as part of your itinerary, you have the option to end the trip there and fly back to Istanbul directly from Alexandria and then connect on to your home city our country.
The Barcelona-based discount airline Vueling also flies to and from Alexandria directly from both Barcelona and Paris, so if you want to connect in either of those cities, you have very cheap daily flights at least a few times per week to fly out of Alexandria on Veiling.
On occasion, you can also find an EgyptAir flight directly to or from Luxor as well from a few European cities. Two years ago I discovered a once-a-week flight between Madrid and Luxor and I took advantage of it one time when I was flying back to Egypt with a lot of luggage that I needed to get down to our base in Luxor anyway. So I took that direct flight from Spain, where I live for part of the year, to Luxor and I didn’t have to connect in Cairo. But the main overarching point of all of this is to show you that Cairo isn’t your only option anymore for flying out of Egypt, or even into Egypt. While I’d still highly recommend starting your visit to Egypt in Cairo, we’re getting more and more options for more convenient places around Egypt to end a tour and depart the country.
So while your natural tendency when searching for international flights to and from Egypt is to just do a simple round-trip search for your home airport to Cairo, hopefully this new insight I’m sharing here on expanding international flight options from more cities in Egypt will inspire you to dig a little deeper when doing your international flight searches and consider potentially more convenient departures from another city in Egypt IF that city is going to be on your itinerary anyway.
So remember, if you’re planing to visit Luxor, Alexandria, or anywhere on the Red Sea (where the main airports are Sharm el Sheikh and Hurghada), search for flights one-way into Cairo and one-way out of one of those other cities to see if you can find a flight sequence that works better for you than a round-trip to Cairo. And remember that this will also save you the cost of the flight back to Cairo, and often the cost of an extra night of hotel if you have to go back to Cairo and stay overnight at the airport hotel in order to make the Cairo departure work.
And with that, I’ll bid you all happy flight searching!
