On Saturday, a St Petersburg-bound Metrojet Airbus 321 crashed in the Sinai 23 minutes after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh, leaving 224 passengers dead. “This is very normal”, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said Thursday in a news conference with UK Prime Minister David Cameron in London.
Advertisement
Enhanced security measures are now in place to protect the Sharm el Sheikh and Hurghada resort areas.
British travel association ABTA estimated there were about 9,000 customers now on holiday in Sharm, plus an unknown number of holidaymakers who had travelled there independently.
The timing of that move, along with a steady string of security breaches, have stirred doubts about airport safety around Egypt. “We have not said they will 100% operate”.
British passengers who have travelled in the past through Sharm airport took to Twitter on Thursday to describe lax security, such as staff being more interested in their phones than checking bags.
A No 10 spokesperson said the Government was working with airlines “to ensure there are suitable arrangements in place to reunite passengers with their belongings as soon as possible”.
This week’s developments could prove to be “catastrophic” for Egyptian tourism, said Nadejda Popova, a senior travel analyst at Euromonitor global.
After paying the money they say they were led by the official past the queues and the security gates unchecked, before boarding their flight home.
All flights departing from the United Kingdom to Sharm el Sheikh on Thursday November 5 have been suspended and the BA2561 due to depart Sharm El Sheikh on November 5 will depart one day later on November 6.
“We were in the first flights that were cancelled Wednesday night, we were already queuing to board”, said Amy Johnson, a 27-year-old British administrative assistant hoping to catch one of Friday’s EasyJet flights out of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Egypt’s presidential spokesman, Alaa Youssef, also said Egyptian authorities wish the U.S. and Britain had “waited for the result of the ongoing investigation”.
In the Netherlands, a KLM spokeswoman would not elaborate on the Dutch carrier’s decision to only allow passengers to take hand luggage on board a plane that left Cairo airport on Friday.
“But there will be no storage in the plane, in the hold”.
The 47 year old, from Harrogate, said: “What we did is we discussed it and he then produced a £20 note and said, “Have you one of these” and you can avoid the queue”. The reason we’ve acted is because of intelligence and information that we’ve had that it was more likely than not that it was a terrorist bomb.
Advertisement
“Just because something was seen to be OK 10 months ago doesn’t mean to say it’s the same today and doesn’t mean to say that we don’t need to see changes that perhaps we didn’t need to see 10 months ago”. “For others, either in resorts at Sharm or planning a holiday to Sharm in the coming days, our advice is to contact your airline or tour operator”.
