Air links between Russia and the Sinai Peninsula in eastern Egypt will resume in March after a five-year ban following an attack on a Russian plane, Aviation said Thursday. Egyptian civilian to the official press.
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Russian flights “To the two cities of Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada will resume on March 28 via the Russian company Nordwind at the rate of four weekly flights”, said Achraf Noueir, president of the authority of Civil Aviation, quoted by the state media Al-Ahram. This recovery occurs after “The Russian authorities have given their consent”, he said. Moscow had decreed a ban on direct flights to Egypt after a bomb attack that killed 224 people in October 2015 when targeting an Airbus from a Russian company taking off from the seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
In April 2018, Russia announced the resumption of flights to Cairo but not to the Red Sea coast, a destination very popular with its nationals. The United Kingdom, which also suspended its connections with the peninsula in 2015, resumed flights to Sharm el-Sheikh at the end of 2019.
Blow to Egyptian tourism
Claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, the deadly 2015 attack dealt another blow to the Egyptian tourism industry, which was dying after years of political and security instability following the 2011 uprising and the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.
While it had recorded a rebound with nearly $ 13 billion in revenue in 2018-2019, the Egyptian tourism sector was hit hard by the pandemic, recording a drop of more than 20% of its revenues in 2019-2020. , according to official figures.
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