Qatar Airways Cargo to resume Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE operations with the appointment of new general sales agents, taking cargo sales and bookings starting Sunday, 21 February. Venus Air Cargo got the nod for Egypt. Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia formally re-established diplomatic ties and reopened their airspaces to Qatar last month after agreeing to normalize relations at a GCC summit in Saudi Arabia, bringing to an end 3.5 years of hostilities.

Other things we’re keeping an eye on this morning:

• Ticket sales for NordStar Airlines’ weekly direct flights from Russia’s Rostov-on-Don to Cairo kicked off after the airliner got a nod from the Russian federal authorities to start the new flight route on Saturday, 20 February.
• Budget airline Easyjet will begin running three weekly flights from Milan, and four weekly flights from London and Manchester to Sharm El Sheikh starting 30 March.
• Indian solar energy company Sterling and Wilson has signed a USD 127.5 mn order agreement to construct a power plant in Egypt’s Kom Ombo for an unnamed Saudi Arabian renewable energy company, which we assume is Acwa Power.