“Their withdrawal from the market is a severe blow to the industry”.
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It goes a step further than the United Kingdom and Ireland, which suspended flights to the resort city of Sharm al-Sheikh. All 224 people on board were killed.
Putin’s decision was a response to the crash of an Airbus A321 operated by a Russian carrier last Saturday over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Our United Kingdom team continues to liaise with the Government and the Egyptian authorities to try and resolve this fluid and continually evolving situation.
In a statement on Friday morning, EasyJet said that none of the rescue flights it was planning to send from London had been granted permission to land at the Egyptian airport.
In an interview with Seattle radio station KIRO Obama said: “I think there is a possibility that there was a bomb onboard, and we are taking that very seriously”.
Peskov also told reporters on Friday “it definitely doesn’t mean that” Russian Federation now views terrorism as the main theory behind the Metrojet plane crash.
All this has forced Egypt to place restrictions on the number of flights leaving Sharm El Sheikh, because the airport doesn’t have capacity for all the checked baggage certain to be left behind.
Cameron’s decision to ground British flights to and from the airport angered Egypt, which depends on tourism revenue, and drew criticism from the Kremlin, which said it had not been given details of the intelligence behind Britain’s move.
British Prime Minister David Cameron also says it is “more likely than not” the plane was bombed.
Dutch airline KLM banned checked luggage on an early flight from Cairo to Amsterdam after Britain and the United States said a bomb may have brought down a Russian plane in Egypt.
British authorities planned to bring tourists home by Friday, and airlines Easyjet, Monarch, Thomson, and British Airways were expected to run UK-bound flights to collect the estimated 20,000 British tourists stranded in Sharm el-Sheikh.
The head of Russia’s Federal Security Bureau Alexander Bortnikov said it would take as much time as is needed to find exactly what caused the crash.
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An affiliate of the extremist group Islamic State claimed responsibility for the tragedy – the deadliest civil aviation disaster in Russian history. Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah el Sisi has dismissed the claims as “propaganda”.
