Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Egypt will lose £181m ($280m) a month because of Britain and Russia's decision to suspend all flights to Sharm el Sheikh after a plane crash killed 224 people, the tourism minister said.


The Metrojet plane crashed in the Sinai peninsula shortly after take-off en route to St Petersburg on 31 October.
Russia stopped all flights to all destinations in Egypt two days after Britain halted flights to Sharm el Sheikh amid fears that the  aircraft was downed by a bomb.
Tourism minister Hesham Zaazou said Russian and British holidaymakers accounted for two-thirds of tourist traffic to Sharm el Sheikh, while Russians alone made up half the tourists in Egypt's other main Red Sea destination, Hurghada.
A £3.3m ($5m) public relations campaign has been planned to promote Egypt in Britain and Russia, he added.
Sergei Ivanov, the head of the Russian presidential administration, has said it likely to be a "long time" before flights are resumed.
Thousands of tourists from both countries were trapped for days after the crash and the complete backlog will not be cleared until Sunday.
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said the delay was caused by "significantly increased security requirements".
Meanwhile, members of a Russian search and rescue team investigating the crash have left Egypt to return to Moscow
The team of 48 had been recovering bodies at the crash site in Sinai's Hassana area, some 70 kilometers (44 miles) south of the peninsula's city of el Arish.
Other Russian officials are still in Egypt as part of the investigation committee looking to discover why the plane crashed.
US and British officials have cited intelligence reports as indicating the passenger plane was probably caused by a bomb on board.
Egypt has come under criticism over the investigation with sources saying there has been an "unacceptable" lack of transparency following the crash.

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