Egypt will not rush the ongoing investigation into the cause of the biggest civil aviation disaster in Russian history, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi said Wednesday.
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EasyJet said on its website that all delayed passengers would be home by the end of next weekend while Monarch said the last Sharm flight would depart next Tuesday.
British aviation experts looked at security at Sharm el-Sheikh just weeks before the alleged bombing of a Russian airliner but did not raise concerns about safety, a senior Egyptian official told The Telegraph.
“On a normal basis we would be 90% full right now, everyone would be working and everyone would be happy”, says Amr Darwish, an owner of the Terrazzina beach club.
Other Russians remain in Egypt as part of the investigation committee seeking to determine the cause of the crash.
Flights in and out of Sharm el-Sheikh were subsequently stopped last Wednesday, with British and United States officials citing intelligence reports which indicated the plane was likely to have been downed by a bomb on board. According to him, it’s impossible for Egypt to radically change the security system in a short time.
The Russian president is often lionised in Egyptian media as Egypt’s steadfast ally in its battle with militants and a counterbalance to U.S.-led Western dominance.
Two-thirds of tourists to Sharm el-Sheikh, where the plane that crashed originated, come from Russian Federation and Egypt, and the tourist destination accounts for about one-third of the country’s total tourism proceeds.
“We want people who come here to be secure and safe and to live and go back safely to their countries”, he told private Egyptian broadcaster CBC.
“We had obviously booked our time off work, packed all our cases, booked the auto into the airport vehicle park and made all the arrangements and it was not until Friday that it said on the website that we would not be flying out”, she said.
The plane broke up at high altitude and a few national authorities have said it may have been hit by a bomb explosion.
Yet with the Egyptian economy still in a fragile state, the effects of the latest setback will be deeply felt.
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A staggering 80 per cent of holiday bookings to Sharm el-Sheikh have been cancelled since the tragedy and the country is predicted to lose more than £180million each MONTH from lost bookings.
