No sign of end to UK ban on Sharm el Sheikh flights

Transport secretary Chris Grayling says UK will not resume flights to the once popular Red Sea resort just yet

Sunloungers sit empty in the Egyptian holiday resort of Sharm el Sheikh (Getty)

More than a year after British flights to the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh were grounded, the transport secretary has dashed hopes of an imminent end to the ban.

Flights were stopped shortly after a Metrojet Airbus A321 crashed in the Sinai Desert on 31 October 2015. It is believed that Russia’s worst aviation disaster, in which 224 passengers and crew died, was caused by a bomb placed on board at Sharm el Sheikh airport. Five days later, the British Government banned UK airlines from flying to and from Sharm el Sheikh — with the exception of rescue flights to bring holidaymakers home.

Since then the Egyptian government has spent over £20m on improving airport security standards. In the past few weeks the Egyptian authorities and tourism industry figures have expressed increasing exasperation about the UK ban. The Independent estimates that the flight prohibition has deterred 500,000 British people from taking holidays to the Red Sea resort in the past year.

The president of the Sharm el Sheikh Tourism Investors’ Association, Hisham Aly, called the ban “catastrophic for Egypt” and warned that it is creating “exactly the kind of poverty and alienation that fosters extremism”.

Mr Aly said: “Families are being forced into poverty because of the procrastination of the British Prime Minister, despite, as we understand, advice from all relevant UK Government departments that the ban can be lifted.”

But the transport secretary, Chris Grayling, has given no sign of an imminent change to the Government’s view.

Speaking at the Airport Operators Association annual conference in London, he said: “This is something we keep constantly under review. Neither we nor the Russians have gone back in to Sharm el Sheikh.”

Airlines from Germany, Belgium and Turkey are once again flying to Egypt’s premier resort.

Mr Grayling said: “We are working closely with the Egyptians. We will take a decision as soon as we are confident.”

Thomson is selling holidays to the resort from 7 February onwards, while Thomas Cook has a summer programme starting on 1 May 2017. However, such trips have been subject to “rolling cancellations”, with departure dates cancelled and refunds issued two or three months ahead.

British Airways and Monarch have cancelled their entire programmes to Sharm el Sheikh.