Stranded Britons in Sharm el-Sheikh to be back by weekend

On November 6, Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed with recommendations of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee to suspend air service with Egypt until the causes of the A321 plane crash were identified.

Foreign governments including Britain believe a bomb probably brought down the plane on October 31 after it took off from the airport of Egypt’s Sinai coastal resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Speaking CNN’s Barbara Starr, a US official familiar with the matter said that “There is a definite feeling it was an explosive device planted in luggage or somewhere on the plane”. Hundreds of tourists have left the resort, together with Russian & British tourists, who make up almost all of the guests right here.

The two-week trip was the family’s third holiday to Sharm el-Sheikh.

The move is likely to impact Egypt’s economy, which heavily relies on the country’s tourism industry. The minister said that he planned a $5 million public relations campaign to promote Egypt in Britain and Russian Federation as part of an attempt to counter the negative reputation of the country after the crash.

Thomson Airways has confirmed that all flights from Sharm El Sheikh will return to the United Kingdom by Monday.

The NTSB said it received its first formal request for information from Egyptian authorities about the continuing probe into the Russian plane crash.

“To be honest, we stopped flights to Egypt not knowing the final version (of the crash), but we did this as a preventative measure, as a precaution”, Ivanov noted.

Battered by years of political turmoil, Egypt’s vital tourism sector has been nearly completely dependent on Russian and European tourists visiting Sharm el-Sheikh and other Red Sea resorts.

“The next day we were told we wouldn’t be going anywhere the following day either”, Mr Henderson, of Fronks Avenue in Dovercourt, said.

His claims raise questions about whether previous inspections by British experts missed security flaws at the airport – flaws that only came to light after the Metrojet airliner went down in the Sinai desert, killing all 224 aboard.

Asked how long the Russian flight ban could last, Ivanov said that “I think for several months, as a minimum”.

Within hours of the Metrojet crash, a faction of the Islamic State militant group claimed to have downed the plane in retaliation for Moscow’s airstrikes that began a month earlier against militants in Syria, a claim that was initially dismissed by both Russian Federation and Egypt.