BBC News Channel

The BBC correspondent at Sharm el-Sheikh says it is "pretty embarrassing" for the Egyptian authorities that Britain "feels the need to send its own security team to vet procedures at the airport rather than trusting the local authorities".

BBC News Channel

The BBC's Mark Lowen is at Sharm el-Sheikh airport and says there is no sign of any British consular staff there. 

He says British aviation security staff are "presumably working behind the scenes but there's no visible sign of them". 

Britain's decision to halt flights from Sharm el-Sheikh is being given a low priority by state Russian TV news bulletins, BBC Monitoring's Martin Morgan reports.

But online news portals are quoted by a senior member of the upper house of parliament, Konstantin Kosachev, as saying that Britain's move is "politically motivated by its opposition to Russia's actions in Syria".

The press is playing down the idea that Islamist armed groups are targeting Russia specifically over its aerial bombing campaign in Syria, proposing other possibilities.

The popular daily Moskovsky Komsomolets, however, voices the hope that the Kremlin is "not shifting focus from the possibility that Islamic State is aiming to harm Egypt, just to please Cairo".

Protesters are gathering in London ahead of a visit by Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to Downing Street. The BBC's assistant political editor Norman Smith says they are demonstrating over Egypt's record on human rights. He posted this video from the scene:

British tourist Paul Modley (pictured left) is stranded with two friends in Sharm el-Sheikh. The 49-year-old from West London has been to the region seven times in the last nine years and told the Press Association he worries about the future for the local population:

Image source, PA

Egypt's civil aviation minister has echoed Russian views that there is no firm evidence a bomb brought down the Russian airliner on Saturday. 

"The investigation team does not yet have any evidence or data confirming this hypothesis," Hossam Kamal said. 

A short while ago, the Kremlin said any theory about the cause of the crash was speculation at this stage.

The US and Britain said on Wednesday that intelligence suggests a bomb was placed on the Metrojet Airbus 321. As a result, the UK cancelled its flights to and from Sharm el-Sheikh.

Egypt has long been a popular destination for British holidaymakers - its Red Sea resorts offer sandy beaches, a warm climate and diving opportunities. Since the uprising of 2011 that ousted its long-time leader, Egypt has been rocked by political turmoil and terror attacks. This has had a dramatic impact on the country's tourist numbers, as you can see from the graph below: 

Holidaymaker Lesley-Ann Evans from Llanelli in Wales has said she was "on edge" in Sharm el-Sheikh after the UK halted all flights between Britain and the Egyptian airport.  

She said she still had not heard whether she and her partner Gareth will be able to return home on Saturday as planned.  

To listen to more from Lesley-Ann, click here. 

In the longer term, Mr Hammond said the UK would work with the Egyptian authorities and the airlines to look at "sustainable measures that can be put in place to allow the resumption of normal air activity between the UK and Sharm". 

"That is what we want to achieve and we want to achieve it as quickly as possible." 

UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said British experts are in Sharm el-Sheikh helping to get stranded holidaymakers home safely. He outlined some of the measures they aim to put in place before flights to the UK can resume:

The Kremlin has said it is too early to speculate on the causes of the crash, and says planes will continue to fly between Russia and Sharm el-Sheikh.

"Any sort of version of what happened and the reasons for what happened can only be put forward by the investigation and we have not heard any announcements from the investigation yet," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

He told journalists that "any other proposed explanations seem like unverified information or some sort of speculation".

Here's a reminder of what happened on Saturday 31 October. 

The Airbus A321, operated by the Russian airline Kogalymavia, took off from Sharm el-Sheikh airport at 05:58 (03:58 GMT), heading for the Russian city of St Petersburg. It had 224 passengers on board, most of them Russian. 

The plane disappeared from radar screens 22 minutes later while flying at an altitude of 31,000ft (9,450m) over central Sinai. Investigators are searching the wreckage across an area of some 40 sq km (15 sq miles).

You can read here for more on the different theories of the crash.

Our correspondent Lyse Doucet points out that although there may be disagreement between Egypt and the UK over the decision to cancel flights, there are "too many interests at stake" for there to be "long lasting and deep tensions between these two countries".

The BBC's chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet said the decision to cancel flights between the UK and Sharm el-Sheikh would "have an impact" on UK-Egypt relations. 

One official told her that Egpyt would not be "as receptive" about talks on the fight against the so-called Islamic State group and Egypt's move towards democracy when the leaders of the two countries meet later. 

The scene at Sharm el-Sheikh airport on Wednesday evening, when flights to the UK were cancelled. 

There are estimated to be about 20,000 British nationals in Sharm el-Sheikh, of which at least 9,000 are thought to be holidaymakers. 

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond says he hopes British tourists can be flown home from tomorrow. 

Image source, Sarah Cotterill

Asked about concerns that security at Sharm el-Sheikh airport was not tight enough, Mr Zeid said he did not agree with that. He said Egypt had millions of tourists on a daily basis and had never had a plane crash of this kind.

He said this "type of incident happened in many countries" but the first conclusion was not that these incidents were the result of terrorists. 

Mr Zeid said Egypt's president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, would be discussing the situation when he meets Prime Minister David Cameron for talks in London later on Thursday.

He said the president had assured Mr Cameron that the Egyptian government and authorities were providing security to all tourists in Egypt. 

Egypt's foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid told the BBC's Today programme that the government's decision to cancel flights from the UK to Sharm el-Sheikh was "prejudging the results of the ongoing investigation". 

Asked whether the flight was brought down by Islamic State militants, Philip Hammond said we should be "careful" in attributing the attack to the group, which he called an "amorphous structure". 

"The degree to which any particular actions are centrally controlled by IS's headquarters in al-Raqqa [in Syria] is always open to question and that will be a matter people will look at in due course," he told BBC Breakfast.