Egypt Feuds With Travel Blogger, Issuing 1,100-Word Response to Complaints
When a blogger criticized Cairo’s airport, Egypt’s government fired back, citing security footage, threatening legal action and asking, “Is it reasonable for a passenger to visit two lounges before a single flight?”
Authoritarian governments are not known for taking kindly to criticism. And in Egypt, official skins can be especially thin: Deepening repression has muffled most dissent and sent tens of thousands of perceived political opponents to jail, including one for posting a doctored photo of the president with Mickey Mouse ears.
“Cairo Airport: Is There a Worse Major Airport?” the travel blogger Ben Schlappig pondered in a no-holds-barred post on his website, One Mile at a Time. He cited the “actively hostile and rude” staff, the “endless requests for tips,” the “disorder” in line, the “weak” dining options and the “yuck” lounges.
“My visits have varied from inconvenient and disorganized, to outright chaotic,” he wrote. “I just can’t think of a single redeeming quality about the airport.” As if salting the wound, he ended by comparing Cairo’s airport unfavorably with that of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, with which Egypt is locked in a yearslong dispute over water rights.
