Kuwait will launch regular and direct flights to Egypt's Sharm El-Sheikh starting Dec. 1, Kuwait's information minister Sheikh Salman Al-Hamoud Al-Sabah said Sunday in a Cairo press conference.
The supportive move, which reportedly came about under direct orders from Kuwait's Emir, is an effort to aid Egypt's tourism after the industry took a renewed blow following the Oct. 31 Russian plane crash that killed 224 people in Sinai shortly after takeoff.
Sabah also said that it is one of multiple initiatives Kuwait it planning to do not just to help aid tourism but to show its full support to Egypt, according to state-owned Kuwaiti News Agency (KUNA) .
Kuwait is known to be one of Egypt's strongest allies in the Middle East. It has provided billions of dollars worth of aid over the past couple of years to support the country's economy and stability.
The national airline Kuwait Airways has already had regular flights to Cairo, Alexandria and Sohag but up until now it only had seasonal flights to the popular Red Sea resort destination.
Kuwait's initiative is the first from a country to increase flights to the seaside Egyptian city since the crash, as opposed to banning or temporarily suspending flight activity by many countries.
Before the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on Nov. 17 that the crash was caused by a "self-made explosive device" indicating the likelihood of a "terrorist act", Russia had already imposed a ban on all flights to Egypt on Nov. 6 that would last for several months.
The UK also suspended all flights to Sharm El-Sheikh on Nov. 4 over concerns that the plane was downed by a terrorist attack before official investigations had come to conclusions.
Russia also imposed a ban on all incoming flights from Egypt's state-owned airline Egypt Air which started on Nov. 14, claiming security reasons.
Russian tourists greatly contribute to Egypt's tourism influx, especially in the case of the Red Sea resort cities such as Sharm El-Sheikh. They played a crucial role in reviving Egypt's struggling tourism industry in the past few years. About three million Russian tourists visited Egypt in 2014, which is close to a third of all visitors.