Hurghada airport receives 11 Russian flights carrying over 1500 Russian tourists

Hurghada airport receives 11 Russian flights carrying over 1500 Russian tourists

CAIRO – 10 February 2022: On Thursday, Hurghada International Airport received 11 Russian flights from various airports carrying more than 1,500 Russian passengers, among dozens of international flights arriving today from different countries. The airport received the Russian passengers amid strict preventive measures against coronavirus pandemic. In August, Hurghada International Airport received first Russian flight coming from Moscow after nearly six years of suspension after the plane crash incident that took place in 2015. On the same day, Sharm El-Sheikh International Airport received the first flight coming from the Russian capital with 517 Russian passengers from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. Russians used to make up one third of all tourists visiting Egypt, but this figure dropped considerably after a ban was imposed on direct flights, according to a report by Goldman Sachs Group in April. Back to pre-2015 levels, Russian tourism could very well bring in returns worth more than $3 billion annually, said Goldman Sachs Group (a leading global investment banking firm) noting that this would be about 0.75 percent of the Gross Domestic Product. It would be a gradual comeback, especially as the pandemic prevails, the Group said. In 2014, over 3.1 million Russian tourists had visited Egypt, before