The fatal crash of a Russian passenger jet in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula has raised concerns on the inflow of tourists to the area for the Christmas season.
The Russian Metro Jet airliner crash, which killed all of the 224 passengers and crew members on board Saturday, came at a time when the resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh had been witnessing a recent boom in the number of tourist reservations.
Though the accident was widely blamed on technical issues, with experts reportedly refuting the announcement by the Islamic State in Sinai that it downed the jet with a missile, airline companies Lufthansa, Emirates and Air France all said they would halt flights over Sinai until the cause of the crash is determined, according to AFP.
But the tourism industry has had mixed reactions to the accident, some voicing concern while others displaying confidence tourism will continue.
Mohamed al-Shorbagi, the public relations chief at the Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport, said the airport was not affected by the accident, noting that 76 incoming flights and a similar number of outgoing flights were processed normally and according to schedule.
Hesham Ali, the head of the Sharm el-Sheikh Investors Association, said the incident will not affect the tourist season, noting that an earlier crash by ُEgyptian airliner Flash Air in 2004, which killed 148 passengers and crew members, had not affected the industry.
“The airplane’s fall from 33,000 feet rules out terrorist culpability,” Ali said.
The head of the Egyptian Travel Agents Association in Sharm el-Sheikh, Yasser al-Adawi, agrees. “No reservations or flights have been cancelled, especially considering that it was a natural incident.” Adawi added that the city received 2,800 British and German tourists on Saturday and prepared a festival for the guests at Naama Bay.
Ahmed Ghobashi, who heads a coalition to support tourism in Sharm el-Sheikh, said the plane’s black box, once recovered, will determine the future of tourism in the city, urging speediness in revealing the box’s records to pre-empt what he called “attempts by hostile media to undermine Egyptian tourism”.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
