Egypt 2nd biggest global tourist destination for hot air balloon tours

Egypt has become the world’s 2nd most important destination for hot air balloon trips after hitting 11,000 annual flights, with a total of 216,000 tourists.

The Civil Aviation Ministry, the authority supervising the organization of balloon flights in Luxor, introduced GPS and flight recorder technologies to monitor flights, tracking their path and landing location.

This comes as part of a package of measures taken by the Civil Aviation Authority in Egypt, with the aim of protecting tourists and monitor balloon flights over the city of Luxor.

High-tech cameras placed on the body of the balloon record every flight from the moment of take-off until landing, serving as a black box that records details of the flight from launch to landing.

The authority has also utilized modern devices that help determine the location of balloons in the air, in addition to using GPS devices that record the navigational movement of the flight, used as a reference for the Civil Aviation Authority in monitoring compliance with safety principles.

These procedures succeeded in eliminating any random balloon landing of the flying balloon, which had caused issues by landing on sandy ground or agricultural areas.