Egypt’s civil aviation ministry denied reports that authorities had stopped British airlines from flying into Sharm al-Sheikh airport on Friday, as the first flight to repatriate tourists left the city’s airport.
EasyJet’s flight EZY9854 took off for London’s Gatwick airport after a long delay with 165 British passengers onboard, AFP reported.
“Flying out thousands of people on one day is incredibly hard. Everyone has to go through the procedures. We have not cancelled any flights but the airport cannot handle all these planes at once,” a spokesman for Egypt’s aviation ministry told Reuters earlier on Friday.
This is the latest development to affect Egypt’s airspace since a Russian plane crashed shortly after taking off from the Red Sea resort earlier this week, killing all 224 people on board and raising suspicions it was brought down by a bomb.
Britain’s transport ministry said it was working with Egypt to ensure flights could bring home British tourists stranded in the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh after one airline said it had been refused permission to fly some of its planes there.
“We are urgently working with the Egyptian authorities to try to ensure planned flights leave Sharm al-Sheikh today,” a spokesman for Britain’s Department for Transport said.
EasyJet said that two aircraft which had already arrived in Sharm would be able to depart, but its other eight planned flights would not be able to operate.
“We are working with the UK government at the highest level on a solution. In the meantime we are also working on a contingency plan so we can operate as soon as we receive permission to fly,” it said.
EasyJet as well as charter companies Monarch and Thomson were all planning to fly empty planes to Sharm el-Sheikh on Friday to bring back some of the 20,000 British tourists currently in the resort.
