Applause for handling hijack, scowl for dampening tourism, economy

The success in handling Tuesday's non-terror hijack has triggered massive thumbs up, but piled up the gloom over Egypt's tourism, a pillar for its withering economy.

Egyptian Seif-Eddin Mostafa, 59, hijacked an EgyptAir Airbus 320 on Tuesday as it took off from Alexandria en route to Cairo after threatening the crew with a fake explosive belt and forced them to land in Cyprus's Larnaca airport.

All the 81 passengers, including 21 foreigners, were freed in Cyprus and the kidnapper was arrested the same day.

Egyptian official reports said the incident was not terrorism-related and the hijacker was "a fraudulent and a forger" who faced relevant charges in lawsuit cases.

The old man had been sentenced to one year in jail but escaped amid the 2011 political turmoil, then went back to prison in January 2014 and was released last year.

Having a criminal record without being wanted in an ongoing lawsuit does not ban a person from traveling.

In fact, the hijack was more like a farce with odd and even hilarious elements, just like the old man's obsession with the will to go to Cyprus to see his ex-wife and daughters as he couldn't get a visa.

A picture of the glassy-eyed hijacker and a smiling British hostage has been widespread on the Internet. A rescued man, with a facebook user name "AbdAllah El Ashmawy", narrated some details on board.

He praised that Egypt airlines crew were really professional, especially the ladies flight attendants who managed to keep smiling all through the flight.

"I can see one of them crying at her front seat but once she stands up again she keeps her smile just to calm people," he said.

An egyptian decided to call his family and friends one by one, and till the plane was about to land, the man was still saying loudly to the phone "God, I'm abducted!"

Another guy called his wife to tell her about some hidden case dough and his wife asked him to repeat the bank name and account number, totally ignoring the hijack thing.

A man was sleeping and woke up to be informed of landing in Cyprus, and his response was "Why Cyprus? I will miss my connection!"

Although the hijacker hasn't made substantial harms, the divorced man, reported in a bad psychological state, might not have realized the stupid behavior would have traumatized his motherland's efforts to revive the ailing tourism industry.

"It was not a terrorist act at all. Nonetheless, it will leave a negative impression about Egypt's air security," said Bashir Abdel-Fattah, political expert and researcher at the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

Egyptian TV showed the video where the hijacker was thoroughly checked at Alexandria's airport after passing through the security screening machine along with all the other flight passengers, and no explosives or prohibited items were found in his possession.

"Egypt's airport security is not to blame in this case," said Abdel-Latif al-Bedaini, security expert and ex-assistant interior minister.

He also noted that the probe into the Russian plane crash is still ongoing and that the explosive device used in the crash might not have been planted in Egypt.

However, Russia so far has not decided to resume its suspended flights to Egypt.

Egypt has been suffering a stagnant tourism industry, a main source of its national income, due to political turmoil and the Russian plane crash in Sinai which killed over 200 last October.

Additionally, the Suez Canal's revenues declined as a result of slowing global trade, which has further worsened the currency shortage.

President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi reshuffled the cabinet on March 23 as the country strives to revive its economy, official Ahram online reported.

He swore in 10 new ministers, covering the aspects of finance, investment, business and tourism.

Since the 2011 uprising which toppled former president Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's economic recession caused the country's foreign currency reserves to plummet from 36 billion U.S. dollars to 16.5 billion dollars.

The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) devalued the Egyptian pounds to 8.85 per dollar from 7.73 on March 15 in a move to narrow the gap between the pound-U.S. dollar exchange rates on the official and the parallel markets.

The CBE said the new measure is also a bid to boost the market supply and bolster the nation's potential to attract foreign investments.

The central bank was reluctant to devalue the pound for fear of increasing inflation, which reached an annual 9.1 percent in February, leaving government restless to rein commodity prices to avoid any unrest.

Source: XINHUA