Turkey, Egypt ‘not to be reopened for Russian tourists this year’

MOSCOW/ISTANBUL

DHA photo

Turkey and Egypt will not be reopened for Russian tourists this year, according to the deputy head of Russia’s Federal Agency for Tourism, TASS News Agency reported April 7. 

“Turkey will not be reopened this year for sure, and the latest events in Egypt showed that Egypt will most likely not be reopened either,” Roman Skory said April 7.

According to the official, the safety of flights to Egypt concerns not only Russia. 

“By way of example, Britain and a number of European countries are not rushing to resume flights to Egypt either. Safety is the key issue, the number-one problem,” he said.

Russia suspended flights to Egypt after the Oct. 31, 2015, crash of a Russian passenger jet over the Sinai Peninsula that killed 224 people, which was the biggest air crash in the history of Russia’s aviation. 

Flights to Turkey were suspended on Nov. 28, 2015, by a presidential decree in line with a raft of sanctions against Turkey after the latter’s military shot down a Russian military jet on the Syrian border, killing a soldier. 

Scheduled flights between Russia and Turkey by the two countries’ flagship carriers have dropped almost 50 percent along with the number of passengers, according to officials. The number of Russian tourists visiting Turkey also dropped by over half in the first two months of the year compared to the same period of 2015, the latest data showed.