More Aussies wait in Egypt for delayed Qantas plane
Australians waiting to be evacuated from tension-filled Egypt may have to wait for awhile in escaping from the unrests gripping the North African nation as the second chartered Qantas plane dispatched by the government to fetch them got stuck in Germany.
Reports said that the plane has been sitting at Frankfurt airport for more than 13 hours waiting for its malfunctioning braking system to be fixed though in a latest update, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd announced on Friday that the aircraft has been repaired and should take off for Egypt on the same day.
By Friday morning, Egyptian time, Rudd said that the Qantas plane will be on Egyptian ground and will commence its mission of evacuating up to 130 Australians waiting to leave behind the worsening violence in Cairo and other Egyptian cities.
The foreign ministry said that most of the Australian nationals are currently billeted on hotels near the capital but about 30 Aussie citizens are waiting for a lull in violence in the city centre before proceeding to the designated area of evacuation point.
In an interview with ABC News, Rudd said that he has made appeals on Egyptian authorities to provide assistance for Australian embassy officials to ensure the orderly procedure of getting the country's citizens from the areas of unrest to the airport.
Rudd said that Australian officials on the ground have been advised to observe precautionary measures as "it has been judged to be too difficult and possibly too dangerous to travel from the hotel in the city through to the airport."
The foreign minister also stressed that Egyptian authorities need to give their support for the evacuation plan to proceed smoothly and that concern has been duly lodged to the country's diplomatic officials.
The Australian government has tapped Qantas to ferry Australians out of the troubled nation and an earlier chartered flight landed in Frankfurt on Thursday carrying 191 passengers.