Cairo:
The State Department began a voluntary evacuation of American citizens from Egypt on specially chartered flights to "safe havens" on Monday as unrest continued to roil the country.
Cairo International Airport on Monday was a chaotic scene, overflowing with tourists and Egyptians desperate to get on an outbound commercial flight. Outside Terminal 1 more than 1,000 people -- mostly Egyptians -- sat on sidewalks and in the airport parking lot, surrounded by luggage.
Tempers boiled over at times as travellers struggled to get seats on the limited number of commercial flights still operating. At one point the airport stopped posting flight times on its departure board, The Associated Press reported, in an attempt to ease tensions. But the move served only to stoke anger over delays and cancellations.
The first American government flight departed Cairo for Larnaca, Cyprus, in the early afternoon with 42 passengers, followed by two flights to Athens with about 177 passengers each, according to Elizabeth O. Colton, a spokeswoman for the American Embassy in Cairo. She said that as many as six more flights were preparing to take off on Monday with more to follow during the week.
"Our goal is to get people to a safe place where they can make their own onward travel arrangements," the embassy said in a statement on Monday.
Americans taking the government-chartered flights -- including dependents of American officials in Egypt, some diplomats and private citizens -- would be expected to reimburse the State Department for the cost of travel at a later date; the amount they would be asked to pay has not yet been determined.
Some 90,000 Americans live and work in Egypt, most of them in the major cities that have been shaken by anti-government protests and looting.
Governments around the world scrambled to put together evacuation plans for their citizens. Austria said it would evacuate hundreds on special flights and would send a small army plane to help; Turkey said it had already brought back more than 1,500 citizens over the last three days; and Japan chartered flights for its citizens stranded at the Cairo airport, Reuters reported.
Even as governments worked to process all the requests for flights, many foreign citizens had already found room on planes chartered by private companies with workers in Egypt. Coca-Cola was among the companies chartering flights, which began over the weekend.
At the American University in the upscale Zamalek district of Cairo, a crowd of young foreign students spent the morning sitting on suitcases or milling about nervously, awaiting word about the start of embassy-organized charter flights out of Egypt.
Gunnar Dancer, 20, of Minneapolis, said he would head to the American Embassy on Tuesday to try to get on a flight. "I feel safe here, and I don't really want to leave," Mr Dancer said. "But it would give me family some peace of mind."
But his two dormitory roommates -- Matthew Layden, 21, of Tampa, Fla., and Dillon Sodaro, 19, of Norwalk, Conn. -- said they had decided not to take the embassy up on its offer. "It makes sense for tourists, but not if you live here," Mr Layden said.