KLM airlines to suspend flights to Cairo for 'economic reasons'

Royal Dutch airlines KLM announced on Wednesday that it would be temporarily suspending flights to Cairo for "economic reasons" from 8 January.

“The devaluation of the Egyptian pound and the decision of the Central Bank of Egypt to impose restrictions on the transfer of foreign currency out of Egypt have a negative impact on results of KLM,” said the company in a statement.

"The final flight to Cairo (for the foreseeable future) will depart from Amsterdam on 6 January 2017, with the final flight returning to Amsterdam on 7 January 2017."

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) warned Egypt in a statement in August that it “risks damaging its aviation industry if it continues to block the release of hundreds of millions of dollars owed to foreign airlines.”

IATA told Gulf News that Egypt owed $250m worth of local ticket sales to international airlines, down from $291m in June.

Egypt has seen a number of plane-related catastrophes in recent years.

In October, the Islamic State group (IS) claimed responsibility for bombing a Metrojet plane carrying Russian holidaymakers, killing all 224 people on board.

IS  claimed it smuggled a bomb inside a soda can onto the plane in a Sinai resort airport, in response to Russian air strikes in Syria.

The Airbus A321 was built in Hamburg in Germany and operated by the Russian airline.

The bombing prompted Russia to suspend flights to Egypt, in a blow to the country's tourism industry.

Egypt was hit by another aviation disaster in May this year when an Airbus A320 flying from Paris to Cairo went down in the Mediterranean.

All 66 people on board were killed.

Investigators said the black boxes and the wreckage pointed to a fire on board, but they have not yet announced the cause of the crash.