Russian aviation resumes direct flights to Egypt’s Sharm el Sheikh, Hurghada on March 28

CAIRO – 18 February 2021: Egypt’s aviation authority agreed to Russia's Nordwind Airlines to operate four direct flights a week to Sharm el Sheikh and Hurghada, starting next March 28.

This agreement comes after nearly five years of suspensions to Hurghada and Sharm El-Sheikh direct flights. Both cities scheduled to start receiveing two direct flights weekly.

Head of the Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority, Ashraf Noier, said that the Russian company applied to the authority to operate its flights on March 28, and to be directly from Russian airports to Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada.

He noted that the flights will be increased as soon as the operation becomes regular.  

Noier added that a Russian delegation included 17 inspectors from the Russian Ministry of Transport recently made a tour at Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada’s airports which lasted for up to 7 days. The delegation praised the security measures implemented at the airports according to Noier.

Russian authorities approved the resumption of tourism last year to both cities of Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada, however all trips were road trips. Direct flights from Russia to Both cities have been stopped since the accident of the Russian plane on October 31, 2015 which killed 224 people on board.

On January 16, the Russian center announced raising the number of regular flights between Moscow and Cairo to five weekly flights, Russian news agency TASS reported.

"It was decided to increase the number of regular flights to Egypt on the Moscow-Cairo route to five a week,” the center said in a statement.

This comes as the Russian government announced in September operating three flights per week to Cairo, resuming flights after months of hiatus over coronavirus.

Although Egypt has witnessed a second wave of coronavirus since mind-December, the country still welcomes tourists at various areas including the Red Sea resorts amid strict coronavirus measures.

In a December visit to France where he met with President Emmanuel Macron, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El Sisi said that Red Sea resorts such as Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada have almost zero cases of coronavirus.

He highlighted the anti-coronavirus efforts in Egypt, noting that the coronavirus cases in Egypt in general are quite moderate.

Egypt thanks the countries that decided to resume tourism with the African country, the foreign ministry said in a statement after a meeting with a number of European ambassadors in November.

The foreign ministry invited other countries to allow citizens to visit Egypt, in light of the strict procedures taken by the Egyptian authorities to secure tourist attractions, which record almost zero coronavirus cases.