Russia is ready to resume direct air communication with Egypt

UFA, 12 December 2017. /Bashinform News Agency, Gulfiya Akulova/. Russia is ready to resume direct air communication with Egypt - a protocol on this may be signed in the near future, Vladimir Putin said after talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Russia 24 reports.

According to RIA Novosti, the Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation Maxim Sokolov gave a forecast for the terms, having named the beginning of February and said that so far it was only a question of resuming direct flights to Moscow-Cairo.

According to the data from Cairo, the Cairo airport is already decorated with banners with greetings to Russian passengers of Aeroflot in Russian.

And the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR) reports, transportation to Cairo will not be of interest to tourists: those who wish to have a rest at the resorts of Egypt go there through third countries. To organize trips, they use the services of Ukrainian, Belarusian tour operators and agencies, or arrange trips through neighboring countries independently. Flights to Cairo can be an alternative for such independent tourists, but they are unlikely to replace completely connections in Minsk, ATOR experts say.

Restrictions on flights to Egypt were introduced in the fall of 2015, when a terrorist attack occurred in the sky over Sinai. Then, 217 passengers and 7 crew members of the Kogalymavia airline were killed. The plane flew from the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg.

Since the closure of this direction, Egyptian airports have undergone numerous checks, but the air service has not been restored.

In autumn, President Putin said that Russia wanted to restore air communication with Egypt, but "we must be absolutely sure that the security of our citizens will be guaranteed".