Following plane crash in Egypt, Russian tourists suddenly stop booking trips abroad with Russian tourist agencies

In the wake of a plane crash in Egypt that killed more than 200 people, Russians have almost entirely stopped booking trips abroad through Russian tourist agencies, according to Irina Tyurina, the press secretary for the Russian Travel Industry's Union.

Russians are also beginning to cancel vacations already booked through tourist agencies. "The number of cancelations is still small, but agencies expect that number to grow dramatically. Judging by sale managers' conversations with clients, people are genuinely afraid to fly anywhere right now," Tyurina said. Russian tourists already on vacation in Egypt are scared to fly home, she added.

“On Monday [November 2], sales stopped almost across the board. It's just dead silence. People are in shock. As everyone searches for what caused this tragedy and there's a heated debate about ‘external forces,’ tourists are not willing to book tours with flights anywhere,” Tyurina said.

On Saturday morning, October 31, an Airbus A321 Russian passenger flight operated by Metrojet crashed in the mountainous area of central Sinai, en route to St. Petersburg. According to flight records, there were 224 people on board. The flight was organized by the St.-Petersburg-based tourist company Brisco.

After the crash, Egyptian authorities said the likeliest scenario is that the tragedy was the result of a technical malfunction on the airplane, though more definite conclusions will be possible only after reviewing the plane's flight recorders. Russian aviation officials have refused to speculate about the reasons for the crash, before the flight recorders have been reviewed.

Representatives from the Russian airline Metrojet have categorically denied that its plane crashed due to mechanical failure, saying the only plausible explanation is that external factors brought down the aircraft.

According to a report by Reuters, a source in the committee analyzing the flight recorders says the black boxes did not contain evidence that the plane was struck from the outside.