Later Tweets by EgyptAir said the plane, which was traveling at an altitude of 37,000 feet (11,280 meters), disappeared in Egyptian air space at 02:30 a.m., some 280 kms (165 miles) from the Egyptian coastline, before it was due to land at 03:15 a.m.
Αn EgyptAir flight carrying 66 passengers and crew on a flight from Paris to Cairo went missing on Thursday, disappearing from radar over the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt's national airline said.
According to Reuters, officials with the airline and the Egyptian civil aviation department told Reuters they believed the Airbus A320 probably crashed into the sea.
The plane was carrying 56 passengers and 10 crew: two cockpit crew, five cabin crew and three security personnel. The airline said two babies and one child were on board. The airline said among the passengers were 30 Egyptians, 15 French, two Iraqis, and one each from the UK, Belgium, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Chad, Portugal, Algeria and Canada.
"An official source at EgyptAir stated that Flight MS804, which departed Paris at 23:09 (CEST), heading to Cairo has disappeared from radar," the airline said on its official Twitter account.
Later Tweets by EgyptAir said the plane, which was traveling at an altitude of 37,000 feet (11,280 meters), disappeared in Egyptian air space at 02:30 a.m., some 280 kms (165 miles) from the Egyptian coastline, before it was due to land at 03:15 a.m.
"There was nothing unusual," EgyptAir vice chairman Ahmed Adel told Reuters. "The search and rescue aircraft from the Egyptian air force are at the position where we lost contact. They are still looking and so far there is nothing found."
Egyptian state newspaper Ahram reported no distress call was made and the last contact was 10 minutes before the plane disappeared.
Kinda Chebib, Senior Analyst, Euromonitor International comments: "Egyptair flight from Paris to Cairo with 66 people on board disappeared over the Mediterranean Sea early Thursday. This events of is again a negative development for the Tourism industry in Egypt and its economy, just months after the Russian plane crash over the Sinai Peninsula, which impacted on Egypt’s tourism industry, with Russia and the U.K. -two of Egypt’s major tourism markets – suspending their flights to the country. Egyptair confirmed that the flight was carrying 30 Egyptian nationals along with citizens from 11 other countries, including Canada, France, the U.K., Belgium and Iraq.
Although details of the incident are yet to be confirmed, the series of terrorist events hitting Egypt since 2015 raises further concerns about security at airports in the country and is very likely to deter tourists to go to this part the world.
If we analyse tourist’s performance prior the political unrest in 2011 and recurring attacks by jihadist militants (such as Sinai), arrivals from key markets plummeted in 2011 and started gradually to recover until 2015. But those never achieved the performance from prior the events.
Egypt can restore its image when it comes to specific, location-limited events, but when we speak of such big proportion of security breach, and when international terrorists groups are involved in the frame of a larger geopolitical issue, there is no doubt that it will take a while for the Egyptian tourism and economy to get back on its feet. We can therefor speak of an impact on the mid to long term.
Travellers are likely to remain very hesitant to travel to this part of the Middle East and will opt for destinations like the Gulf countries or in North Africa they are likely to choose Morocco, contrasting with more vulnerable destinations like Tunisia and Egypt. Although Egypt is known for quickly bouncing back from different crises, we believe that the recent events will slow down the ambitions of the local government to achieve the target of 20 million foreign tourist arrivals by 2020.”
Key figures EUROMONITOR data:
- Despite the decline of-18% in 2012-2013, 2014 was a good year for the country, inbound flows rose by 8% to reach 10.2 million arrivals, up from 9.5 million in 2013.
- UK is the second biggest source market for Egypt with 1 million arrivals in terms on trips to the country in 2014 after Russia which recorded in 2014 nearly 3 million arrivals.
- Russia was also the fastest growing source market for Egypt in 2014, registering a 18% growth in 2013-2014
- Italy represents the fourth biggest source market for Egypt. However, arrivals from Italy declined by almost 50% in 2009-2014.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
