Telegraph: Anger at ongoing ban on flights to Sharm el-Sheikh

CAIRO-4 August 2017: “The British government should lift the ban on flights to the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, as the Egyptian authorities have gone to considerable lengths to secure the destination’s airport,” the head of the cross-party parliamentary group on Egypt told Telegraph Travel on Friday.

“The Egyptian authorities have gone to considerable lengths to assure adequate security at Sharm el-Sheikh, and flights from other countries have been resumed. In my view, it’s time for the UK’s ban to be lifted too,” MP Stephen Timms, chair of the task force in charge of strengthening ties between the UK and Egypt, told Telegraph Travel on Friday.

According to Telegraph Travel, the ban is keeping British tourists from the beaches of the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. The Foreign Office warns against travel to other areas of the peninsula, but Sharm el-Sheikh is seen as a safe tourist stronghold, but it is impossible to directly fly there from the UK.

Telegraph Travel added that the Foreign Office announced the lifting of its ban on travel to Tunisia last week, which had been put in place after a terrorist attack in Sousse in June 2015. “It is a bit baffling, given how difficult it is to secure Tunisia compared to Sharm el-Sheikh,” said Dirk Paterson, a spokesman for Latif Hotel Group, which has four hotels in Sharm el-Sheikh, told the Telegraph Travel.