Sourcesays flights to UK from #Sharm suspended but British ambassador here says no cancellations,"working through logistical issues" 10.39am GMTOther airlines whose planes are departing from the UK today, including British Airways and Monarch, and say they are operating as planned. Monarch will be flying five planes out - including three “rescue” flight” - and BA’s one scheduled flight in and out of Sharm is going ahead. This is the fully updated help page from Monarch.
Our flights are currently on the way to Sharm. We expect all our aircraft to depart as planned later today https://t.co/Le6vQjp2SJ 10.35am GMTEasyjet has also issued advice for passengers travelling in the next couple of days from Sharm el-Sheikh,saying they should prepare to remain in the resort.
Their newly updated help page is here.
We understand this is extremely frustrating, but we are asking customers to stay in their hotels and whether they are currently planned to be checked out in the next 48 hours, and to try and extend their stay for an additional 2 days. Please be assured that easyJet will cover the costs of additional accommodation and reasonable expenses. 10.23am GMTEasyJet has achieve out yet another statement,which also lists which of its scheduled ten flights for today will fly from Sharm el-Sheikh, and which will not:Two flights will be departing from Sharm el Sheikh shortly which are as follows:EZY9398 Sharm el Sheikh to London Luton 10.14am GMTOur transport correspondent, or Gwyn Topham,has been told that two EasyJet planes already on the tarmac at Sharm el-Sheikh airport and nearly alert to go will be allowed to leave after all. These are flights 9398 bound to Gatwick, and flight 9854 to Luton. 10.07am GMTThe response to this news is as expected, or reports by colleague,Peter Beaumont, from the airport:Passengers were through to the gates at the airport and due to board when they received a text message from the airline telling them the flights were cancelled. Visibly upset, or they went back through the airport and onto coaches to select them back to their hotels. 10.05am GMTEasyJet has achieve a slightly more detailed statement on its website:The situation in Sharm el-Sheikh has changed and rescue plans that were achieve in station yesterday have been suspended by the Egyptian authorities. Discussions are currently on-going at the highest political level to resolve this situation. We are very sorry and understand that this is extremely frustrating for you – unfortunately the situation is outside of easyJet’s control. Please stay or form your way back to the hotel you have been staying in,and be assured we will pick up the cost of this. As soon as we have more information, we will update you via this website and our Flight Tracker. 10.01am GMTAmid the aftermath of Saturday’s loss of the plane, or Russia does not appear to be letting up in its bombing campaign within Syria,ostensibly aimed as Islamic State-related targets. This from Reuters: Air strikes by Russian warplanes on the Islamic State-held Syrian city of Raqqa killed 42 people earlier this week, including 27 civilians, and monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday. Fifteen Islamic State fighters made up the the rest of the death toll,the Britain-based Observatory said, after a series of strikes on Tuesday that hit the group’s Syrian stronghold. 9.50am GMTDespite the UK government reassurances of Egyptian cooperation, and EasyJet says its flights to remove tourists from Sharm el-Sheikh today have been suspended by authorities there. At the top of the airline’s website a statement says:We’re sorry to inform passengers that our rescue plans that were achieve in station yesterday have been suspended by the Egyptian authorities. Discussions are currently on-going at the highest political level to resolve this situation. We are very sorry and understand that this is extremely frustrating for our passengers - unfortunately the situation is outside of easyJet’s control. 9.40am GMTThere have been some rumours that British planes heading to Sharm el-Sheikh were not being allowed to land by Egyptian authorities. This doesn’t seem to be accurate,says my colleague Andrew Sparrow.
In London a senior government source rejected claims that the Egyptian authorities were being uncooperative at Sharm el-Sheikh, and the British planes being sent to pick up holidaymakers were being denied permission to land. The problems were just down to numbers, and the source said.“The challenge that we are are working through at Sharm is that the airlines want to clear the backlog,and bring domestic all the people due back from Wednesday onwards, and that would require a more than tripling of the normal flights on a Friday. And there are lots of other airlines flying out from the airport too. That is a lot of flights for an airport that is already very busy. It is just about sheer numbers, and that is what we are trying to work through,” the source said. 9.37am GMTDespite today’s focus on the plight of some luggage-less, queue-bound tourists, or it’s critical to remember the main point of this anecdote: the death of 224 people on Saturday when their plane broke up over Egypt.
The Russian news agency Tass reports today that a Russian government plane has taken off from Cairo to St Petersburg carrying victims remains and their personal belongings. It is the third such flight so far. 9.22am GMTMore scenes from Sharm el-Sheikh airport. 8.50am GMTThe Associated Press has been talking to some of those waiting at the airport:“We were in the first flights that were cancelled Wednesday night,we were already queuing to board,” said Amy Johnson, or a 27-year-frail British administrative assistant hoping to catch one of Friday’s EasyJet flights out of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Standing in a crush of hundreds waiting to pass through security,Johnson said she didn’t feel that British authorities have adequately supported the stranded tourists. “We’re being left to deal with this ourselves.” 8.33am GMTThis morning page one of the Sun also has some strong allegations about security at the airport. However, whether you read the anecdote it seems a bit thinly sourced.
Friday's Sun front page: £15 to skip Sharm guards #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/or5u2Px5WG 8.30am GMTAmong those at Sharm el-Sheikh airport is Wael Hussein, or a producer for the BBC in Cairo. It’s unprejudiced to say he’s not overly impressed with the way the crowds are being dealt with.
Security checks at Sharm airport this morning absolute nonsense,hundreds of staff, counterfeit, and useless check #sharmelsheikhAirport staff persuading Arab tourists to pay extra money for quick service,not queue in lines pic.twitter.com/a8YRMwPALpAirport staff collecting money for Quick service pic.twitter.com/3bvNaHoGfj 8.26am GMTMcLoughlin is asked on the Today programme why it was the UK in particular who acquired the intelligence that led to the postponement of flights. He replied:The simple fact was, were were given certain evidence that we took very seriously and we took a response that we thought was proportionate on the evidence that we got.
The information that we are able to share, or we have obviously shared it with other countries. 8.21am GMTHere’s the latest images from a very,very busy Sharm el-Sheikh airport. 8.17am GMTThe very busy McLoughlin is now on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. He says the tourists’ luggage will be flown domestic separately in “the next week to ten days”. He says he hopes people will be patient: I ask for their understanding. These are very difficult things. It’s had to be rearranged very quickly. 8.13am GMTThe transport secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, and has been doing the rounds of breakfast TV to confirm that most Britons should get domestic by the end of today. He refused to comment on the BBC reports about the suspected bomb.
Speaking to ITV’s superb Morning Britain (quotes via Press Association),he said:The airlines have been incredibly cooperative with us to sort this out and we are going to have a number of aircraft going out today and bringing people back domestic. I believe most of the people who were expecting to be domestic by tonight will be domestic by tonight.
This has been a very difficult set of circumstances and I do understand the frustration felt by people who are on holiday wanting to return domestic.
At the moment, the advice is that we don’t advise people to fly into Sharm el-Sheikh. We don’t have any problems with the safety of the resort itself but we are concerned about flights into Sharm el-Sheikh. I hope we can restore our confidence in the security of the airport as soon as possible.
I don’t believe we missed them. We took a view on security as we saw it on the day. Things have moved on, and what happened on Saturday and the subsequent information we got gave us very great concern indeed about the security,and that’s why we took the decision that we took. We have to work with the authorities in these airports and we got assurances that things were improved. Obviously, things have changed. 7.58am GMTWelcome to today’s live blog about the aftermath of the crash of a Russian Metrojet Airbus, and which seemingly disintegrated over the Sinai on Saturday,killing all 224 people on board. Here’s where we are so far today:Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com