Flights and Holiday Bookings to Sharm El Sheikh Cancelled for Summer 2017

Leading airline Monarch, has cancelled all flights and holiday booking to Sharm El Sheikh for this winter, and has no plans to fly to the resort in summer 2017..

Monarch airline has announced that it is cancelling all flight and holiday bookings to the popular Egyptian tourist destination, for “the foreseeable future.”

The Sharm El Sheikh airport has been closed off to British flights for almost a year. The closure followed the bombing of a Russian passenger plane, in October last year, which killed all 224 people on the flight. ISIS later claimed responsibility for the bombing.

The airline stated that all flights and holiday bookings to the airport have been cancelled, due to: “...no indication from the Government as to when the airport will re-open to flights from the UK.”

The airline, which was previously selling holidays to Sharm for this coming winter, has stated that their customers can either re-book to another one of their destinations, or claim a full refund.

When looking to book a flight or holiday to Sharm El Sheikh with Monarch, the website states: “At this time we do not offer holidays to Sharm El Sheikh as the airport is closed to all flights to the UK.”

Before the closure, the resort was highly popular with British tourists, attracting around 700,000 Brits each year.

Andrew Swaffield, Monarch Group Chief Executive, said: “Much hard work has been done by the UK and Egyptian Governments, along with the travel industry, to improve safety measures at Sharm El-Sheikh Airport and it is very disappointing that it remains closed. If and when the airport does reopen then we will assess whether we start flights and holidays again.”

Director of the Egyptian State Tourist Office in London, Rasha Azaizi, said: This long-term ban on flights to Sharm El-Sheikh is now affecting many UK travel businesses as well as airlines and is causing deep consumer confusion.

“The Foreign and Commonwealth advices is currently that it is safe to visit Sharm El-Sheikh but not to go through the airport.

“That’s given people the impression that they can’t visit Egypt when in fact British Airways, Easyjet, Thomas Cook, Thomson and EgyptAir are already operating direct flights to other airports in Egypt,” The BBC reported.

The terror threat in Egypt continues to remain high.