Turkish Airlines announced today that the carrier will not fly to and from Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh until November30 due to security concerns.
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Rosaviatsiya, the state aviation agency of Russian Federation chose to ban Egypt Air from flying across the country starting November 14.
Egyptian Aviation Minister Hossam Kamal said authorities had received notice from Domodedovo and had cancelled a flight for Saturday, and “reserved seats on other airplanes for passengers from Cairo and those coming from Moscow”.
The Metrojet Airbus A321 was taking tourists home from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Kazakhstan has suspended tourist flights to Egypt, the Interfax news agency reported on Friday, citing the Kazakhstan Tourist Association.
The move follows Russian president Vladimir Putin’s decision to suspend all Russian flights to Egypt after the crash of a Russian passenger jet in Egypt on October 31 that killed all 224 people on board.
Sharif told the media that the Russians have demanded a Russian language translation of Egypt Air’s operations manual and that the ban would stay in place pending a review of the procedures. It has been flying out thousands of holidaymakers stranded in the country, although without any check-in luggage.
Last week, Russian authorities said that the 80,000 Russians now in Egypt would not be “evacuated” and would be allowed to continue their vacations.
The investigation into the crash remains a mystery to many Egyptians, with little information available, Sayed added.
Western officials have privately voiced concerns that Egypt might try to cover up the true cause of the crash in order to protect its tourism industry.
But a few United Kingdom travellers said they felt they were being put through unnecessary additional screening by Egyptian security guards who were trying to impress a team of British overseers.
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Another group of four Russian tourists told the Daily News Egypt that they arrived a day before Russian flights to Egypt were suspended.
