The UK government is coming under increased pressure to explain how it will help bring back about 20,000 holidaymakers from Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt after it suspended all flights in and out of the popular holiday resort.
The foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, said “emergency short-term measures” such as additional baggage screening would be put in place to return stranded holidaymakers, many of whom are frustrated at the lack of information on the ground after the UK government said there was a “significant possibility” the Russian airliner that crashed over the Sinai on Saturday – killing all 224 people on board – was brought down by an explosion on board.
Kate Dodd, a holidaymaker from Didsbury in Lancashire, currently in the resort with a four-month-old baby and a five-year-old child, told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme she had not received information from tour operators. “They’re not telling us much really,” she said. “We did have a meeting but we were told they didn’t have anything to tell us but they were meeting again at 2pm.”
Dodd was due to leave on Wednesday night on a Thomson flight and waited on the runway for two hours before the journey was cancelled. “It wasn’t until I rang my parents and they said there was a problem with the security and all flights had been suspended to and from the UK,” she said. “It was me actually who told the cabin crew. They had no idea what was going on.”
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