Back in Business! Cairo Airport Re-Opens Flights to Moscow Only Under Heavy Security
Let's get back to Monday again. The day when President Vladimir Putin announced the defeat of the terrorists in Syria started with a flight from Moscow to Khmeimim. He spent an hour and a half there and then he headed straight for Cairo where he held negotiations with President El-Sisi. Then Putin set off for Ankara, Turkey where he held negotiations with President Erdogan. And on the same day, he came back home to Moscow. A difficult but fruitful route. For example, in Egypt Putin announced the renewal of direct flights between Cairo and Moscow. The first flight will take place in February.
Sergey Pashkov-on how Egypt prepares for this.
There are still no flights from Russia but there are sterile areas only for Russians in Hurghada, Sharm El Sheikh and Cairo airports. Separate luggage checking zones, separate border control gates and dozens of check-in desks have already been reserved for the Russians arriving in Egypt. Cartoons in the Russian language will explain what to take off, what documents must be shown, what to throw away, and where to go next. “Take your laptop out and place it into a separate tray for scanning”.
Only EOD specialists dressed like medieval knights work here instead of civilians. A robot grabs the luggage that didn't clear security screening and takes it to a special box for disposal. The doors close and you can hear the explosion.
Airport personnel undergoes a thorough safety check here too. It is assumed that a terrorist who carried a bomb into a Russian plane could be a baggage loader. From now on, every flight dispatcher, policeman, loader, administrator must undergo a thorough personal check and then receive a personal magnetic card. They can switch from one zone to another only by combining the electronic key and fingerprint of the pointer finger. and each movement is fixed by the computer of the internal Security Service.
The sweet scent of the desert. We come off the plane in one of the bests resorts of the Red Sea, Sharm El Sheikh The temperature of clean sea water even in winter is above 23 degrees. Unique corals, exotic fishes, singing fountains of Soho's pedestrian zone.
You can see the absence of Russian tourists by hundreds of empty tables in hotels and sun loungers on the beach and at swimming pools. In the winter season, Russians accounted for more than 2/3 of all the tourists in Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh.
When planes from Russia stopped flying to Sharm El Sheikh, hotels lost up to 40% of their guests. 24 hotels could not recover from such a blow and were closed. Tour operators started to look for someone who could replace the Russians.
Amer Barakat, general manager of the hotel: "We have a 100% increase in the number of visitors from Germany, 40% of vacationists in Luxor are Chinese here you can see a lot of Belgians and the Danes. Saudis are building a bridge here, and then we will have a lot of residents of the Arabian Peninsula.
Christmas in the desert. The biggest holiday of the winter season. The prices soar, the pedestrian areas are decorated with illumination, the Christmas trees sparkle with lights and tinsel in hotel lobbies. Santa Claus may not be recognized by local imams as a saint but he certainly became an informal patron of the resort business.
Fabian Kügele, tourist from Hungary: "You don’t have to run around shopping, buy gifts cook dinner, they all run after me, entertain and feed me, and I love it very much. I don't skate or ski, so I prefer to swim in the corals at Christmas".
After a halt, the ferry service with Hurghada was renewed one-day trips to Cairo resumed again. Those who want to risk and get tired go to Mount Sinai.
But unlike Russians, Europeans prefer to lie near heated pools.
Francois, tourist from Belgium: "We're constantly traveling here and noticed the absence of Russians at once. We're active people and we often swam on the Nile or went a bus to the pyramids or to Luxor together with the Russians".
Today, one can hear the Russian speech from tourists who came from Belarus, Kazakhstan or Ukraine. There are very few Russians. The price of tickets with a transfer is an argument in choosing a holiday destination.
Tatyana Zaykova, hotel worker: "Earlier you could spend 10-14 days in the hotel and then go home for this money. Now you spend this sum only to buy tickets".
Those who risked and bought tickets with a transfer in Istanbul, Minsk, Alma-Ata, and Rome noticed that South Sinai had fenced off from the North Sinai where a real war is going on for several years against radical Islamists loyal to ISIS. There are numerous checkpoints, where soldiers of the presidential guard hold their arms day and night. Specially trained dogs are nosing cars and buses. Soldiers check documents of passengers, drivers, and convoys.
Nikolay Zubin, tourist from Moscow: "It was a very serious security check. I had to unshoe, take off my belt, etc. There were several security cordons. There is a lot of security staff in Sharm El Sheikh and I feel safe".
Helmuth, tourist from Germany: "We come here for the fifteenth time we see how the safety requirements have changed. We leave today and we spent maximum 20 minutes. But we feel absolutely safe".
The planes of Aeroflot will set a course for Cairo in February. In a short while, the air gate of Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh will reopen.
Sergey Pashkov, Aleksandr Ivanyuk, Andrey Popov Vesti Weekly, Egypt