Do the Russians, at least, know what’s up? Direct flights from Russia to the Red Sea tourist destinations “fully” resume in the near future, but there’s still no official deadline, Russian Federation Council Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Konstantin Kosachev told Egypt’s ambassador to Russia Ihab Nasr, according to TASS. “We are close to resuming these routes in full in accordance with the sides’ interests,” Kosachev added. Nasr previously said he is hoping to see the issue resolve by the end of 2019. Russian officials have repeatedly stopped short of saying when they see flights resuming.

The latest: A Russian security delegation was said to have been preparing a final security sweep of Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada airports in the second half of this month, but we haven’t heard of updates since then. Flights between Cairo and Moscow resumed last April after being banned following the downing of a Metrojet flight in 2015. President Abdel Fattah El Sisi’s October 2018 visit to Russia was expected to deliver an agreement on the resumption of flights, but no word on the ban emerged from his sit down with President Vladimir Putin.