Russia resumes indirect flights from 29 courtiers, including Egypt

CAIRO – 26 April 2021: Russian has announced officially the resumption of indirect flight from 29 countries, including Egypt, to Moscow, announced the Russian embassy in Cairo in a statement on Monday.

As per the Russian government’s decision, citizens coming from the 29 countries are allowed to arrive in Russia via transit flights.

The twenty-nine countries include Egypt, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Germany, Greece, Qatar, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Cuba, Maldives, Emirates, South Korea, Seychelles, Serbia, Singapore, Syria, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Finland, Switzerland, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Japan, the Kingdom United, India, Tanzania, Turkey.

President Adel Fattah El Sisi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin agreed in a phone call on April 23, to fully resume flights between the two countries, especially to the coastal cities of Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh, after six years of hiatus to these touristic destinations.

Flights between two countries were suspended at late October 2015 after a bomb downed a Russian flight carrying holidaymakers from the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, killing all 224 people on board, mostly Russian tourists. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State terrorist group.

In January 2018, Russia decided to resume the flights to Egypt’s Cairo International Airport after Egypt has been implementing new, tighter security measures at all of its airports to meet the Russian demands necessary for the resumption of flights.

Egypt expects more than one million Russian tourists in 2021 as direct flights between the two countries, including the Red Sea resorts of Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada, are expected to resume in the following weeks, Reuters quoted Egyptian deputy tourism minister as saying.

Ghada Shalaby said that in 2021, Egypt is set to receive 50 percent of the number of tourists it had in 2019 after the number plummeted by 70 percent in 2020 following the outbreak of Covid-19.

The number of visitors coming to Egypt dropped to 3.5 million in 2020 from 13.1 million in 2019, according to Reuters.

The country, which depends on tourism as a main source of income, is aiming for tourism revenues of $6 billion-$7 billion this year, Shalaby added.