Hundreds more UK travellers stuck in Egypt hope to fly home

Hundreds of British holidaymakers stranded in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh were hoping to return home day after a handful of flights landed in Britain, although others were held up by logistical problems.
Britain suspended flights to the Red Sea resort on Wednesday after saying it feared a bomb may have brought down a Russian jet which crashed after taking off from there last week, killing 224 people, and warning about security at the airport.
Eight flights carrying some 1,400 travellers returned to Britain yesterday after restrictions were lifted but tourists were only allowed to bring carry-on bags, with check-in bags due to be flown back later.

Today, easyJet is due to fly 445 passengers back on two planes from Sharm el-Sheikh to London Luton Airport.
Monarch expects to operate two services to Manchester in northwest England and British Airways has one flight scheduled to land at London Gatwick. Thomas Cook expects to run two flights.
There were tears of relief as passengers landed in Gatwick yesterday after days of delays.

"I'm so grateful to be home with my family. I didn't think we would come back," said Emma Turner, a 34-year-old from Kent in southeast England.
Nicky Bull, a human resources manager, said passengers were informed of increased security measures around their plane.

"I think a lot of people will question whether they ever want to go to Egypt again," she said.
"We were told when we got on the plane that the Egyptian army and MI5 had been guarding the plane. There was no way that anybody could get at it."
Egypt's civil aviation minister Hossam Kamal said that only eight out of 29 planned flights were leaving due to the requirement that passengers take only their hand luggage.
He said the airport could not accommodate more than 120 tonnes of check-in baggage left behind.
Moscow yesterday became the latest country to halt flights to Sharm el-Sheikh, as sources close to the investigation into the crash said black box data pointed to a bomb on board.

The Islamic State group has claimed it downed the plane, without explaining how, saying it was retaliation for Russian air strikes in Syria.
Egypt, however, pushed back today against mounting international suspicions that the plane was bombed, saying the Egyptian-led probe into the disaster had yet to establish a "hypothesis."
Ben Khosravi, 27, who was on an easyJet flight which landed at Luton, painted a lax picture of the screening process at Sharm el-Sheikh.