200 Russian tourists to fly back home from Egypt today

About 200 Russian tourists are to come back home from Egypt today evening, Russian Tourism Agency Rosturizm has said.

About 200 Russian tourists will board the final charter flight of the Red Wings airlines at Hurghada Airport at about 15:00 local time, and approximately at 20:00 Moscow time, the plane is scheduled to land at Moscow''s Vnukovo airport, the press officer of Rosturizm, Oleg Moiseyev, has said, .

"Alongside the tourists representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Rosturizm will return home, too," he said.

The spokesman said that "in the evening of Thursday, February 10, in Egypt there were about 300 tourists from Russia, respectively, about 100 returned home on Friday, 11 February."

Moiseyev added, "In Egypt there will remain at least ten tourists from Russia, so-called ''individual travelers'' who had not bought any vouchers through travel agents." Among them, he speculated, are "divers and those who have refused to leave the resort early, but they are very few."

Moiseyev also noted that this would be the final charter flight.

Regular flights from Egypt will continue, but from Cairo, possibly with a stopover in Hurghada.

He recalled, "On January 29 Rosturizm established an inter-departmental center that constantly monitored the situation involving Russian tourists at the resorts in Egypt."
In addition, he said, "the center opened hot phone lines and callers were free to have detailed information about what was happening at the resorts and in the administrative centers of Egypt, as well as to obtain legal advice on the cancellation of contracts with travel agencies."

Moiseyev also stressed that Rosturizm and Foreign Ministry officials were quick to fly to the resorts to work with the tourists and promote their return home.

The Russian Union of the Travel Industry promised that "those tourists who bought tours to Egypt, but had no chance to fly, can either choose a different site for vacation or receive compensation from the travel agencies."

However, tour operators have warned that paying cash compensation to all tourists at a time would be impossible and some may have to wait up to several months to have their money back.