Rosaviatsia (the Federal Air Transport Agency) has not confirmed the information on the resumption of charter flights to Egyptian resort cities - Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada. This was reported to journalists at the press service of the Federal Air Transport Agency.
"Rosaviatsia does not confirm the speculations of some media about the resumption of charter flights to the resort cities of Egypt," the agency said in a statement.
On the eve, the newspaper Al-Ahram reported that charter flights between Russia and resorts in Egypt will be resumed from March 28. Later the Ministry of Civil Aviation of Egypt reported that Moscow and Cairo agreed on the resumption of flights, but the exact date has not yet been set.
From January 27 to February 3, a group of representatives of the Ministry of Transport and security experts in the field of air transport was working in Egypt, who again checked the safety of Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh airports, as well as the infrastructure of the Red Sea resorts. Since the airports were suspended last spring due to a new coronavirus pandemic, it was important to make sure everything was functioning smoothly, Russian Ambassador in Cairo Georgiy Borisenko told Russian reporters earlier. The inspection was the first since January 2020.
Air crash in Sinai
Air travel between Russia and Egypt was completely interrupted in November 2015 after the crash in Sinai of a plane of the Russian company Kogalymavia flying from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg. There were 217 passengers and seven crew members on board, all of whom died. The FSB qualified the incident as a terrorist attack.
In January 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree resuming regular flights to Cairo. The first flight from Moscow took place four months later in April. Charter flights to Egyptian resort areas are still closed. In recent years, Egypt has improved the system of screening, control and inspection of passengers and baggage, as well as significantly modernized the infrastructure of airports.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Creative Commons
Based on materials from TASS