10/12/2019
Egyptian hotels and tourism officials have once again shared their optimism with the public. According to information from Hurghada, Russian experts who surveyed the resort airport signed a document confirming the safety of flights of Russian tourists to this air harbor.
At the same time, they are ready to provide a separate terminal for Russian tourists at the Hurghada airport. We are talking about the old terminal, which was subjected to a large-scale reconstruction «according to the instructions» of Russian experts. There it is supposed to serve Russian passengers, transferring the rest of the flights to the new terminal, which opened in August.
In theory, the source says, the formalities have been completed. And now nothing prevents Russia from allowing charter flights and direct regular flights to Hurghada.
Recall that at the end of September another discussion of the opening of Egypt at a high level took place «on the sidelines» of the UN General Assembly in New York: with a request to return Russian flights to Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh, Egyptian Foreign Minister Samekh Shukri addressed his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov … The topic of the meeting between the Foreign Ministers of Russia and Egypt was questions of economic cooperation, and Mr. Shukri, taking this opportunity, recalled the need to continue work on the development of tourism relations between the two countries. He also emphasized the desire of Egypt to resume Russian charters in Egyptian tourist destinations as soon as possible.
Recall that in April, the topic of the resumption of Russian flights to the Egyptian airports of Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada became one of the main topics in the conversation «on the sidelines» of Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The meeting took place during the Second Forum for International Cooperation (BRFIC) in Beijing. “The presidents of the two countries discussed a number of issues related to bilateral relations, including the resumption of Russian flights to Egypt. The Russian President praised the efforts made by the Egyptian authorities to ensure airport security, which will facilitate the resumption of Russian flights after the end of the ongoing technical consultations between the two sides, «the Egyptian president said at the time.
At the same time, Egypt was closed for Russian tourists almost four years ago. The suspension of flights between Russia and Egypt was the result of the terrible tragedy with the charter flight of the Russian airline Kogalymavia (flying under the Metrojet brand), which crashed as a result of a terrorist attack on October 31, 2015 during a flight from Sharm El Sheikh to St. Petersburg … The victims of the disaster, which became at the same time the largest plane crash in the history of Egypt and the aircraft of the Airbus-A320 family, as well as the most massive in terms of the number of Russian citizens killed in the history of world aviation, 224 people, including seven crew members.
6 days after the incident, on November 6, 2015, Vladimir Putin, after a meeting of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAC), supported the proposal of FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov to suspend air traffic with the republic and evacuate all Russian tourists vacationing at the resorts of this country. In turn, Rosturizm immediately announced the creation of a coordination headquarters for the evacuation, estimating the number of our tourists in Egypt at 45 thousand people.
Optimistic assumptions about the discovery of Egypt began to sound almost a few months after the disaster. However, in reality, small advances happened only in December 2017 — when an agreement was signed to open flights to Cairo. In reality, they took off only in April 2018.
As for the resorts, direct flights to Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh are still closed for Russian tourists. However, there is a convenient opportunity to go on vacation to Hurghada through Belarus — read this link on how to do it correctly!
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