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ELITE

"The rich touristic potentials of Egypt are

restricted by the fact that access to Egypt is by

air only..."

permitted. However, by chance, I was assigned a teaching need of an assistant, I was chosen as a consultant at the time.
schedule for just one day so I was free to raise my children. I was
extremely happy with those years, spending time with my children During your student life, how was your relationship with the
and taking them to different landmarks in Egypt to the extent that professors as well as the activities in college?
my colleagues thought I would not continue in academia, Concerning the professors, my relationship with them was love
especially since I was already late for it. Fortunately, thank God, I and enamorment with their respective thought. I could never
completed my master's degree at the determined insistence of my forget Dr. Hana Khairieddine, as well as Mostafa Al-Saeed and
mother and my mother-in-law. I used to study whenever the others whose smoothness of explanation I had enjoyed. As for
children went to sleep and before my husband came back from student activities, I participated in all the trips and student
work. From here, I learned to organize time and how to reconcile
my studies with my children and husband. I completed my families [clubs]. I was a friend of all the students in college. I
master's degree and started my PhD, whose topic had revolved even applied in my second year to the student union, but I didn't
around a brand new subfield: the economics of air transport. I was manage to win the elections. I always liked social activities with
strongly rejected at the faculty's seminar but I was insistent and, students, and I always attended the university theater shows. I
with the support of Dr. Amr Mohieddin, I studied this subject used to love acting very much but I didn't participate in the
because it is important and essential where it relates to public theater. Regarding time management, I always woke up at dawn
benefits and its state pricing. It is also concerned with to study and it is during this time that I could finish everything
infrastructure; this was revloutionary then and way ahead of its to be able to go on trips afterwards.
time as there were only 15 airports and now there are 24. I
envisioned that Egypt, with its unique location, could expand. Dr. Adela Rajab has also commented on femininity and
The subject of transport in general is not one that tempts you to feminization, stressing the gift of the letter 't' tied to women by
branch out from, but I persevered and completed my PhD, making
it the first Arabic-language PhD thesis on the economics of air the Arabic language. Thus, why should titles be stripped of this
transport — with the insistence of my supervisors, to whom I was letter? Why not feminize them, especially since there is no
responisble to after the travel of Dr. Amr Mohieddin, namely Dr. actual basis to the "cultural custom" preventing them?
Baher Atlam and Dr. Mona ElBaradei. After completing my PhD,
I started my career by taking on a set of teaching curricula at the You have had a special interest in tourism and aviation
faculty. I instructed courses including 'Principles of Economics', eversince your doctoral thesis and the presidential decree
'Microeconomics', 'International Economics', 'Management appointing you as Deputy Minister of Tourism and then as
Economics' and 'Transport Economics' until 2006 when I was Chairman of the Board of Directors for 'Egypt Tourism' -
chosen as a consultant to the Minister of Tourism. This choice was tell us a bit about your enduring passion for the issue of
based on a research paper of mine titled 'Why tourism does not tourism and about your periods of work as a consultant and
benefit from aviation?' that I had presented at a research center then deputy minister?
with the presence of the Minister of Tourism. The following day, a
ministerial decree was issued to reappoint the then-standing In fact, it was a coincidence, I was representing the faculty in a
Minister of Tourism to the Ministry of Housing and to appoint to conference related to the Faculty of Economics and Political
new Minister of Tourism. Since the new Tourism Minister was in Sciences in Ain Sokhna and I met with one of the young people

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