Egypt has set up a crisis committee to tackle airport security in areas popular with tourists, says Minister of Tourism Hisham Zazou.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Egypt Megaprojects conference in Cairo on 8 December, Zazou told MEED “Egypt has set up a committee made up of various ministries including the interior ministry and aviation ministry” in order to tackle what he calls “perception-based concerns” from foreign visitors.

Although the minister refused to comment on the cause of the Metrojet incident, when a Russian passenger plane crashed on the Sinai peninsula on 31 October, he said that for his ministry “perception is reality”.

“Regardless of the reality on the ground we need to handle perception – we have had many crisis management meetings with the prime minister and other bodies in Egypt,” says Zazou. “My proposition is that the way forward to by bypass the problem is to first meet with everyone and engage in the dialogue particularly Russia and Britain and to do that we decided we should address the issue on ground – there is a current frenzy on the Egyptian side to address any gaps in our airports – the level of threat in the world has risen following a number of incidents around has made all people deciding to upgrade their security.”

Zazou also told MEED that the ministry will be seeking an independent non-governmental consultant in the next week to produce a report on Egypt’s airport security.

So far the ministry has estimated direct losses of up to $280m due to the passenger crash in October with revenue projections for 2016 witnessing a 10 per cent contraction.