British Airways, Lufthansa suspend flights to Cairo for seven days

CAIRO (Reuters): British Airways and Lufthansa abruptly suspended flights to Cairo from Saturday over security concerns, but giving no details about what may have prompted the move.

“We constantly review our security arrangements at all our airports around the world, and have suspended flights to Cairo for seven days as a precaution to allow for further assessment,” British Airways said in a statement. Lufthansa later said it had cancelled its flights to Cairo on Saturday from Munich and Frankfurt and will resume its flights on Sunday

British Airways, a unit of IAG, also said that it would never operate an aircraft unless it was safe to do so. When asked for more details about why flights had been suspended and what security arrangements the airline was reviewing, a spokeswoman responded: “We never discuss matters of security.”

Three Egyptian airport security sources told Reuters that British staff had been checking security at Cairo airport on Wednesday and Thursday. They gave no further details.

The British Foreign Office updated its travel advisory on Saturday to add a reference to the British Airways’ suspension, advising travellers affected to contact the airline.