Russia Will Continue To Ban Flights To Egypt For Months

Egypt’s Ministry of Civil Aviation said that 51 Russian aircraft transferred over 11,000 tourists back to Russia on Saturday from airport in the Red Sea resorts of Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurgada.

Air links between Russian Federation and Egypt will be cut for at least several months after last month’s air crash in which 224 died, the Kremlin’s chief of staff said today.

US intelligence agencies are 99.9% sure that a bomb had caused the October 31 crash of Russia’s Metrojet Flight 9268 over the Sinai Peninsula.

The Islamic State group affiliate in Egypt claimed responsibility for the crash saying plane was downed by a missile.

HOTEL workers are being questioned as Egyptian investigators explore the possibility that a bomb suspected of downing a Russian Metrojet plane was planted in a passenger’s luggage. The ban on flights to Egypt may last for several years, the newspaper quoted an unnamed source in the government, adding that similar bans could be introduced on a few other countries as well.

Russian Federation also said Sunday it is sending experts to inspect security at Egypt’s airports.

Tens of thousands of Russian tourists were still awaiting more flights Tuesday.

Egypt and Russian Federation have yet to formally announce the cause of the disaster.

If countries such as Egypt balk at suggested airport security improvements, countries such as Britain can halt flights that bring them valuable tourist dollars, Hammond said.

Mr Hammond said that he and other government officials involved in the decision to ground the planes had chosen to do so after asking themselves whether they would have felt safe to board a plane from Sharm el-Sheikh in the days after the crash.

Israel’s best-selling Yedioth Ahronoth daily reported on Friday that Israeli radar had spotted the Russian plane plummeting “like a rock” but no sign of a missile launch beforehand, lending weight to the theory it had been bombed. Although the United Kingdom has been criticised by Cairo for not sharing intellengence information, Al-Sisi’s visit to London in early November was regarded as a success by both the Egyptians and the UK Prime Minister David Cameron, and just the latest demonstration of how Al-Sisi has positioned himself as a key ally to both the West and Russian Federation in their fight against Islamic extremism in the region.

The group has been fighting the Egyptian army in the Sinai, most of which is a closed military zone, in a conflict that human rights groups say has claimed thousands of civilian lives.

Sharm al-Sheikh, at the end of the Sinai Peninsula, had been considered relatively secure, because of its remoteness and because all approach roads could be monitored. When airport security used to see my green passport and veiled wife, they used to come to me and greet me like a king, the most senior would walk us to the baggage searching point and then would say in a cheeky way: so, shall we open all these bags …