There’s little to excite you at this busy airport, with one exception

The airport: Cairo International Airport (CAI)

The flight

Emirates EK928 from Cairo, Egypt to Dubai, UAE (DXB)

The arrival

At 7.45am, it’s a dive into Cairo traffic for the 20-kilometre transfer to the airport from the city. Google Maps promises a 35-minute drive, but it’s only ever guesswork in Cairo, and can take up to two hours in bad traffic. This morning, the French president is in town and the roads around his riverside hotel – which I must drive past to reach the airport – are choked with traffic because of security. It ends up being one hour in the Cairo game of Tetris traffic, cars squeezing into spaces where no car belongs, until I arrive at the airport.

The look

Africa’s second-largest airport covers a massive area – 37 square kilometres – and we’re driving through it, looking down onto the old terminal building, long before we reach the new terminal 2, which opened in 2017. The drop-off zone for terminal 2 (one of three terminals) is between two curving walls of blue glass – arrivals on one side, departures on the other, with a shaded cover and a few struggling palms in between.

Check-in

The shiny, showpiece Terminal 2 is used only by the biggest and richest airlines, reducing crowds and creating a seamless check-in experience. I’ve arrived three hours before my flight and there’s no queue. I breeze on towards the gate.

Security

Like most Egyptian flights, there are two security checks – one on entering the airport and one beyond immigration. At the second check, there’s the seemingly archaic need to remove shoes. Still, only 30 minutes after arriving at the airport I’m through check-in and all security rigmarole is complete.

Food + drink

Options are largely of the generic McDonald’s/Starbucks variety (albeit with high tea thrown in at Le Carnaval). Head upstairs immediately beyond security and there are the food court usuals, while past the duty-free stores, where the terminal forks left and right, there’s a second line of eateries: an Italian restaurant, a bakery and Burger King. Local flavour comes from Abu Auf, an Egyptian retailer selling chocolates, nuts and healthier snacks.

Retail therapy

There’s little point saving much carry-on space for your airport shopping plunder. The terminal contains just a handful of stores, though they’re not the standard, cookie-cutter sort of airport stores. There’s a small bookstore, tech shop and toy store upstairs, but the real shopping business is on the main level. Shopping here has Egyptian touches: a linen store, papyrus and silverware at the end of the corridor to E02 and E01 gates, and a stall with your final chance to get your name written in hieroglyphics.

Passing time

This is where CAI gets interesting. Turn left after security and ascend one level and you’ll find the Terminal 2 Archaeological Museum. After all the tombs and temples of Egypt, this small, glass-enclosed museum (admission $US5) is a fond farewell to Egyptian history. Segmented into eras, the collection ranges from 4000-year-old funerary stelae to a 6th-century-BC mummy, the canopic jars used to hold the organs of mummified bodies, and a 19th-century Koran.

The verdict

In the cacophony that is Cairo, CAI’s terminal 2 turns out to be one of the most peaceful spots in the city. There’s little to excite the credit card or the taste buds, but the Archaeological Museum – a little collection of antiquities inside a modern terminal – is a distinctive and worthwhile curiosity.

Our rating out of five

★★★

The writer travelled to Egypt as a guest of Bunnik. See bunniktours.com.au

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