Three days after the deaths of two British holidaymakers in\u00a0Egypt, Thomas Cook is moving all its customers from the hotel where they apparently fell fatally ill.<\/p>\n
The firm will start to\u00a0evacuate 301 guests from the Steigenberger Aqua Magic Hotel in\u00a0Hurghada, on the Red Sea coast, early on Friday morning.<\/p>\n
In a statement,\u00a0Thomas Cook\u00a0called it\u00a0\u00a0\u201ca precautionary measure\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we understand this is upsetting for those on holiday, we believe this is the right thing to do,\u201d<\/p>\n
Susan Cooper,\u00a064, and\u00a0her husband\u00a0John Cooper, 69, died in Hurghada\u00a0on Tuesday. They are believed to have been on holiday with their daughter, Kelly Ormerod, and their grandchildren.<\/p>\n
Reports say that Mr Cooper\u00a0died first and that a few hours later his wife suffered a heart attack.<\/p>\n
The tour operator said: \u201cThe circumstances of their deaths are still unclear.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the statement added: \u201cWe have also received further reports of a raised level of illness among guests.\u201d<\/p>\n
The implication is that\u00a0Mr Cooper\u00a0may have succumbed to a virulent illness. It is highly unusual for a tour operator\u00a0to evacuate a complete hotel.<\/p>\n
Carol MacKenzie,\u00a0Thomas Cook\u2019s group\u00a0head of\u00a0customer welfare, has flown to Hurghada to support the family.<\/p>\n
Thomas Cook said: \u201cWe continue to work closely with the hotel and are supporting the authorities with their investigations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Steigenberger Aqua Magic Hotel was last audited by Thomas Cook in late July 2018 and received an overall score of 96 per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr and Mrs Cooper were from Burnley in Lancashire. Susan Cooper was a long-serving employee of Thomas Cook at a branch in Burnley.<\/p>\n
The travel agency was closed all day on Thursday. A note in the window reads: \u201cDue to unforeseen circumstances this store will be closed today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thomas Cook is the UK\u2019s leading tour operator to Egypt, and is believed to have between 1,000 and 2,000 British customers in Hurghada at present.<\/p>\n
Around 400 are due to return on flights to Gatwick and Manchester on Friday evening, but Thomas Cook is also offering customers who are booked to stay longer the option to return early.<\/p>\n
A larger aircraft will be deployed to and from Manchester in order to carry the extra passengers. It is due to leave Manchester at 1.55pm this afternoon, returning at 2.30am on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Thomas Cook customers with advance bookings in the next four weeks to stay at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic have been offered alternative accommodation at no extra charge.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0holiday company\u00a0has taken the Steigenberger Aqua Magic off sale, but\u00a0the hotel is\u00a0still selling rooms direct to customers. It promotes\u00a0itself as offering \u201cfive-star fun\u201d, and features a water park and a private beach.<\/p>\n
The hotel is part of the well-regarded Steigenberger chain. The firm is based in Germany but has a strong presence in Egypt, including four hotels in Hurghada.<\/p>\n
Since the ban on flights by UK airlines to Sharm el Sheikh, Hurghada has become the focus of British tourism to Egypt\u2019s Red Sea shoreline.<\/p>\n
The prohibition on\u00a0flying to Sharm el Sheikh\u00a0was imposed three years ago. It followed the apparent downing of a Russian charter flight by a bomb placed on board at the resort\u2019s airport; 224 people died when a Metrojet flight to St Petersburg in Russia crashed in the Sinai desert.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the summer, Thomas Cook said\u00a0visitor numbers to Egypt had almost doubled\u00a0this year compared with 2017<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
The Independent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Three days after the deaths of two British holidaymakers in\u00a0Egypt, Thomas Cook is moving all its customers from the hotel where they apparently fell fatally ill. The firm will start to\u00a0evacuate 301 guests from the Steigenberger Aqua Magic Hotel in\u00a0Hurghada, on the Red Sea coast, early on Friday morning. In a statement,\u00a0Thomas Cook\u00a0called it\u00a0\u00a0\u201ca precautionary …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3585,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3584"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3586,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3584\/revisions\/3586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}