Local Travelers Find A Way Out Of Egypt; Head Home
EASTPOINTE (WWJ) - A large group of travelers -- many from metro Detroit -- were in Egypt, but are now headed home. But it wasn't easy. Ihab Zaki is with Spiekermann Travel in Eastpointe. The agency specializes in travel to the Mideast -- particularly to Egypt. He had one large group of 112 people in the country. Here's how he got them out Sunday:
"We succeeded to have a plane come to pick them up from Jordan that went straight from Amman, Jordan to Luxor to pick them up and they are gonna take them to Tel Aviv and from there, they're gonna have a change of planes to go to Athens and then from Athens back to the U-S," Zaki told WWJ Newsradio 950.
Zaki said people who were traveling in some of the smaller cities - as opposed to Cairo - "have a dilemma" because they have to find a way to get out of those cities, and travel to the capitol in order to be able to leave the country. "I know that there are thousands that are stranded in the Cairo airport already," Zaki said.
Zaki added that it was particularly difficult to communicate with Egypt because the government has disabled much of the Internet, as well as cell phone communications. He said the only way to communicate was to do it the old-fashioned-way: on land lines.
