Egypt unrest has travel agents scrambling

Travel agents are scrambling to get Canadians out of Egypt and some agents say they have stopped taking new bookings to the country as they wait to see what will happen as anti-government protests continue. 

The Department of Foreign Affairs is advising Canadians to avoid all travel to Egypt, citing ongoing protests, high levels of criminal activity and violence throughout the country, as well as the threat of terrorist attacks.

The Canadian government has chartered several flights to help get stranded travellers out of the country, but many people are still relying on commercial flights to leave.

Emile Habib, president of Toronto-based Sun-Ray Travel, said he has been working for days to get his clients out of the country.

"We haven't slept in three days, as you can imagine, but this is what we do," he said from the Toronto airport Monday, where he was greeting a group of 30 travellers returning from Egypt.

Habib, who specializes in travel to Egypt, said that most of his clients were either already home or en route, but he said some travellers were still in Egypt, including a family of five who are stuck in a hotel in a Cairo suburb.

"They're safe, but they are afraid," he said.

He said he planned to wait until Wednesday to take the family to the airport because he didn't want to risk moving them during Tuesday's massive demonstration. Huge numbers of protesters gathered in Cairo's Tahrir square Tuesday for a peaceful march to demand an end to President Hosni Mubarak's authoritarian government.

Nil Aykut, a partner in B.C.-based Anatolia travels, said a government decision to shut down internet and cellphone service last week made the process of getting clients out of the country even more complicated.

"We couldn't reach [our clients] because the internet and cellphones weren't working," she said "We were trying to reach our clients and we couldn't even reach EgyptAir in Cairo."

Most of her clients were able to leave without any major issues, but she said one couple is still waiting to get out.

When the pair first tried to leave Egypt, they ended up spending more than 40 hours at the Cairo airport before giving up and heading to a hotel.

"They were OK," she said. "But of course they were tired because the cafeteria and restaurants were running out of water and food and there were hundreds of people waiting for flights."

She helped them make other arrangements, but their planned flight to Morocco on was cancelled and they are back in a hotel waiting for space on a flight to Spain or Morocco.

Billy Connelly, a spokesman for Gap Adventures, said Tuesday that a group of 22 Canadian travellers who had been stuck in Bihariya arrived safely at the Cairo airport Tuesday morning.

"Our tour guides made sure that they all had supplies of water and food in preparation for a possible long stay at the airport," he said.

Departures cancelled, bookings on hold

Connolly said Gap Adventures has cancelled all departures to Egypt for the next week and will monitor the situation after that to determine what to do next.

"We are looking at departures after that on a week by week basis," he said, noting that anyone considering travel to Egypt should contact their department of state or foreign affairs office first.

Aykut and Habib both said that all departures to Egypt are cancelled and bookings to the country are on hold.

"People are assuming that things will slow down and everything will get back to normal, and that's also what we hope," Aykut said. "But before knowing that the country is safe we wouldn't want to send any clients right now."

Ron Wadey of Aurora, Ont., said he was planning to travel to Egypt, Jordan and Israel in the fall. He said that he and his wife "started to get nervous" after seeing news of the protests and have now asked their travel agent to look at other destinations.

Travel company Expedia.ca said it would continue to sell flights to Egypt "as long as airline partners continue to fly to this destination."

However, the company said it has seen a slowdown in bookings as a result of the continuing unrest in the country. The company said it complies with all government travel advisories, providing "all available information to consumers in order to help them make informed, detailed decisions prior to booking."

A spokeswoman for the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies advised travellers to "take heed" of the travel warning issued by the Canadian government.

"These warnings are very accurate and should not be ignored by travellers," Emma Daisley said.