No US airlines fly in to, out of or over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, where Sharm el-Sheikh is situated. Most of the victims were Russian.
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Islamic State militants are taking responsibility for the crash – as a response to Moscow’s recent military intervention in Syria against the extremist group. The President spoke during a round of local interviews from the White House on Thursday.
The Government confirmed the move as it draws up plans to get a few 20,000 British tourists back home.
There is no global or European blanket ban and a few flights have continued from the airport, but France and Belgium have warned citizens against travelling to Sharm el-Sheikh and Britain advises against all but essential travel by air to or from the resort.
“We may suppose that these are the holes made by the destructive parts of the bomb”, said the Russian newspaper, which cited a three-second video that bloggers found from a Russian TV report.
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond also said there existed “a significant possibility that the crash was caused by an explosive device on board the aircraft”.
Budget airline easyJet said its flights to and from Sharm el-Sheikh were cancelled on Thursday in view of the government’s advice and that its future schedule would be kept under review. It was not immediately clear if or when regular flights from Britain to the resort would restart.
Under the new security rules, passengers will only be allowed on board with hand baggage while hold luggage will be transported separately. He added a few short-term measures would include different luggage-handling arrangements.
Sisi said Egypt and Britain are “working intensively together in a spirit of close co-operation … to address this and get back to normal as soon as possible”.
“Egypt’s civil aviation ministry said in a statement Thursday that the British theory of a bomb having been smuggled aboard the plane ‘is not based on facts, ‘ and that all of the country’s airports apply global security standards”.
“Theories about what happened and the causes of the incident can only be pronounced by the [official] investigation”, Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said. However, British and USA officials said Wednesday they have information suggesting the plane may have been brought down by a bomb, and Britain said it was suspending flights to and from the Sinai Peninsula indefinitely.
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The State Department official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the call by name.
