“Naturally I can not tell you what exactly the data is because I do not possess this information”, Peskov told reporters on November 9.
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“They told us at the airport if we waited they would find accommodation for us, but we knew people from our hotel, the Jolie Ville Royal Peninsula Hotel and Resort, who had been to stay in accommodation they provided and came back because it was disgusting”.
Pundits in print, online and on TV have claimed the West has restricted flights to Egypt because it wants to scare off tourists and undermine the country.
Ivanov said a terror attack is one of several possible explanations, adding that the probe into the crash will involve complex chemical and other tests and will likely drag into next year. But he noted that Israel is not involved in the investigation and said his opinion was based on “what we hear and understand”.
The IS affiliate in Egypt is waging a bloody insurgency in north Sinai that has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers. It maintains tight security ties with Egypt and keeps a close eye on Islamic militant groups operating in the desert peninsula.
Sharm el-Sheikh is a top tourist destination in the country, and particularly popular among Russians who comprised about a third of all tourists visiting Egypt in 2014.
Britain has pointed the finger at shortcomings in Egyptian airport security after blaming last month’s Russian plane crash on a bomb smuggled on board. The plane broke up at high altitude and a few national authorities have said it may have been hit by a bomb explosion.
Interrogations of Sharm el-Sheikh airport staff have failed to turn over any breakthroughs. “At that point there were lots of rumours but we weren’t sure about what had happened”.
The A321 passenger plane dropped off radar screens 23 minutes after takeoff from Sharm el-Sheikh on its way to St. Petersburg.
Qatar Airways, the second largest carrier in the Middle East, has stopped flying along the Sinai border on routes to Cyprus and Lebanon since the crash. The ICAO is a United Nations specialized agency that aims to support a safe and secure civil aviation sector.
Flight numbers have been limited because both Russian Federation and Britain have banned tourists from bringing their check-in luggage, which will be flown home separately.
Moscow said Monday that about 25,000 Russian tourists had returned, on more than 100 flights.
Gevara Mohamed Eljafi, Head of the Tourism Chamber of South Sinai: “This news for all of the tourism industry in Egypt is causing a lot of eruption because for us, we are going out from five years of a depression and low business and this was the hope for most of the tourist employees and the businesses”.
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Meanwhile, Russian forensic experts warned on Monday it could take weeks or even months to conclusively determine whether a bomb brought down the Russian plane. “It has a fantastic safety record”, Airbus spokesman Justin Dubon told AFP at the Dubai Airshow.
