1st Russia-Red Sea flight in 6 years touches down to end travel ban

The first direct flight to Egypt’s Red Sea resorts to have departed Moscow in six years touched down in Hurghada Airport on Monday morning, marking the end of a flight ban imposed on Egypt by Russia after a Russian plane was downed over the Sinai Peninsula.

The EgyptAir flight that arrived is the first of seven Egyptian flights scheduled to depart weekly from the Russian capital bound for Red Sea resorts, an Egyptian Cabinet statement said, with three set for Sharm el-Sheikh and four for Hurghada.

Russian Ambassador to Egypt Georgy Borisenko said that Monday’s flight is just the prelude to plans for a surge in Russian tourism to Sharm el-Sheikh. 

According to the Associated Press, Rossiya, a subsidiary of Russian state-owned carrier Aeroflot appears to be the only Russian airline with direct flights scheduled to the Red Sea from Moscow, while eight other airlines were cleared to operate flights between Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh and 43 cities across Russia.

Egypt has long been at work to meet standards set by Russia to resume the flights, beginning with security procedures and later expanding to include anti-coronavirus measures, though charter flights between the countries will still be sent solely by Russia.

Russian security and health observers paid multiple visits to Egypt over the period of the five-year ban, with a 15-member security team present in both Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada hours before flights took off, according to sources at the Red Sea airports quoted by the privately owned Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper. 

Russian observers will maintain a permanent presence to ensure standards remain in place, overseeing metal detectors, road safety en route to resorts, security cameras and gates for Russian flights, Civil Aviation Minister Mohamed Manar has said. Manar added that the same steps were taken before Russia resumed flights to Cairo International Airport in 2018, where a team of Russian observers have been present since.

Russia and Egypt agreed on the security protocol in 2017, after Russia sent security teams to Egypt’s airports to assess conditions after flights were stopped in October 2015, when a Russian passenger plane exploded over the Sinai Peninsula minutes after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh airport heading to St. Petersburg, killing 217 passengers and seven crew members. Investigations showed the explosion resulted from an explosive device that was inside the plane.

In February 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to resume regular flights to Cairo, though flights to Red Sea resorts remained suspended.

Russian President Vladimir Putin finally agreed to lift the ban on flights to Egyptian resorts after a phone call with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in April. However, the approval was followed by a statement from Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko saying that the resumption of flights depends on the epidemiological situations in the two countries.

Russian security experts who came to Egypt at the end of May this year inspected both security and health measures at Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada airports.

The Russian Federal Tourism Agency suggested to Egypt that the countries establish a joint contact group to monitor the epidemiological situation and how the Egyptian government deals with it, while Russian outlet TASS reported that the full resumption of flights came only after confirmation from the center for confronting the coronavirus crisis in Russia and that flights are to increase at a later date on the basis of the Russian delegation’s assessment of the epidemiological situation in Egypt.

Before the crash, Russians represented the largest nationality group coming to Egypt as tourists. During the first 10 months of 2015, Russian tourists represented a third of incoming tourism to Egypt, a percentage that decreased to about 1 percent during 2016 and 2017. Russia also provided the largest tourist influx to Egypt in 2014, with 3.2 million tourists, bringing in about US$2 billion to the state’s treasury, which represented about 25 percent of tourism revenues at the time.

Egypt is hoping to receive between 300,000 and 400,000 Russian tourists a month now that the Russian ban is lifted, according to Deputy Tourism Minister Ghada Shalaby. The government is aiming to make a total of $6–9 billion in tourism revenue this year, compared to $4.4 billion last year, Tourism Minister Khaled al-Anany has said. In the first half of 2021, around 3.5 million tourists visited Egypt, making $4 billion in revenue.