Monarch Airlines (1968) (London Luton) has extended its ban on flights to the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el Sheikh up to and including December 19. Monarch had been hoping to restart regular flights on November 25, in line with rivals Thomson Airways (London Luton) and easyJet (London Luton) but has since deferred those plans on the advice of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
On Tuesday, Russia's Federal Security Service Director Alexander Bortnikov informed Vladimir Putin's cabinet that a 1kg TNT bomb had been responsible for the down of MetroJet (Russian Federation) (Moscow Domodedovo) flight 7K9268 in the Sinai peninsula late last month. With Islamic State's Egyptian affiliate Wilayat Sinaa (formerly known as Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis) having claimed responsibility for the crash which killed all 217 passengers and 7 crew on-board, Putin has now vowed to track down and punish all those responsible.
"The murder of our people over Sinai is one of the bloodiest crimes in terms of the lives it claimed. We will not dry our tears – this will remain forever in our hearts and minds. However, this would not stop us from finding and punishing the perpetrators," a statement said. "We have to do it without any period of limitation; we need to know all their names. We will search wherever they may be hiding. We will find them anywhere on the planet and punish them."
In response to the incident, Russia has ordered all local carriers to suspend their flights to Egypt effective December 1 while as of Saturday, November 14, EgyptAir (MS, Cairo International) has been banned from serving Russia pending a review of its safety and security protocols.
The German Transport Ministry has meanwhile allowed local operators to continue serving the resort town but has now limited all passengers to carrying hand luggage only. This, according to TUI fly (Germany) (X3, Hannover), has created a logistical nightmare for the airline forcing it to suspend its flights there until January 2016 at the earliest.
