Two Aeroflot planes delivered a group of stranded Russian tourists in Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada to Moscow on Thursday night. According to the Sheremetyevo airport's online board, both planes landed in Moscow two hours apart shortly before and after midnight.
Sources at Hurghada airport told TASS that both flights were 100 percent full. The first flight was bound for Moscow via Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada, and most of the passengers flying were from Sharm el-Sheikh. The second flight, which flew directly from Hurghada to Moscow, was staffed exclusively by tourists from this Red Sea resort. The agency's interlocutor noted that everything went smoothly, without excesses.
According to available information, a Boing-747, capable of taking more than 500 people on board, was prepared to fly through Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada. The second flight from Hurghada was operated by Boing-777 with the capacity of about 350 people. The flights, originally scheduled for March 15, were postponed a total of seven times because of the collection of all necessary documents and overflight approvals.
According to the airline's initial information, it was planned to pick up Russians from Egypt who had Aeroflot round-trip tickets with a used flight segment from Russia. This included tourists with tickets on Aeroflot flights, as well as on flights of its subsidiaries Rossiya and Pobeda. In addition, as Russian Consul General in Hurghada Viktor Voropaev told TASS earlier in accordance with the agreements reached between the carriers these same flights could take passengers with tickets for flights of S7 Airlines, Ural Airlines and Azur Air. The process of reissuing the reservations at the request of citizens was undertaken directly by the airlines.
According to the Russian Consulate General, about 21 thousand Russian tourists were in Hurghada at the end of February, now there are about 4,500 people who arrived through organized travel companies. Tour operators are clearly fulfilling their obligations to the tourists, organizing flights for their return home and paying hotels for stranded Russians. In Sharm el-Sheikh, according to Egyptian tour operators, the situation with the number of stranded tourists is similar.
GSV "Russia - Islamic world"
Photo: Creative Commons
Based on materials from TASS