Italian flights to Egypt suspended

A senior source at Egypt’s privately owned Marsa Alam International Airport has announced that Italian tourism companies are postponing flights to Cairo until mid-October because of the continuing unrest in Egypt.

The source said that four Italian Charter planes had to cancel flights to Egypt this week because the Italian authorities have not yet withdrawn travel warnings to its citizens.

Speaking to the Turkish news agency Anatolia by telephone, the source said: “The airport was planning to receive five flights, but they were postponed until mid-October.” The source explained that the flights were suspended due to the unrest in Egypt.

The source also noted that the tourism industry in Marsa Alam, a famous tourism area, is facing almost complete collapse because of the severe cut in the number of tourists.

He said that 30 hotels out of 62 have completely closed, while the workforce in the still functioning hotels ranges between one and seven per cent. He also pointed out that the number of arrivals to the area via the airport has dramatically decreased from 51,000 a week to only 5,000.