Russia resumes flights to Egypt

By Viola Fahmy

CAIRO (AA) - Russia and Egypt have resumed direct flights after a more than two-year hiatus, officials said Thursday.

Aeroflot, Russia’s flagship carrier, landed in Cairo Wednesday with 120 passengers on board, according to officials at Cairo International Airport.

The first flight from Cairo to Moscow will be carried out Thursday, they added.

A total of six flights per week are planned to Moscow.

In October 2015, a passenger plane went down as it left Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all 224 people on board. Most of the passengers were Russian tourists. A Daesh affiliate claimed responsibility for the incident.

While Russia said the plane was brought down by a bomb, Egyptian authorities insisted that an investigation into the incident was still going on.

In February of the following year, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi admitted that the plane was brought down by terrorists seeking to damage the country’s tourism industry and relations with Russia.

Last December, Egypt’s Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathi and Russian Transportation Minister Maksim Sokolov signed an aviation security agreement in a step towards resuming flights between the two countries.

In 2015, Russian and British nationals accounted for roughly 40 percent of all tourists visiting Egypt, according to official figures.