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(Adds comments from Cameron and transport ministry)
By Sarah Young
LONDON, Nov 6 (Reuters) - British attempts to bring homethousands of tourists stranded in the Red Sea resort of Sharmal-Sheikh were thrown into chaos on Friday when Egypt slashedthe number of flights it would allow to take them home.
Prime Minister David Cameron halted flights between Britainand the resort over concerns that a Russian airliner thatcrashed after leaving the same airport on Saturday may have beenbrought down by a bomb planted by Islamic State militants.
Britain, which has about 20,000 of its tourists in Sharmal-Sheikh, was planning to return some of them from the resorton Friday, with only hand luggage, due to security concerns.
Those plans were thrown into confusion when Egypt said onlyeight of the planned 29 flights to take the Britons home wouldbe able to operate. Britain's Transport Secretary PatrickMcLoughlin had earlier said "well over 20 flights" werescheduled.
Egypt's Minister of Civil Aviation Hossam Kamal said theoperation to bring large numbers of British holidaymakers fromtheir hotels to the airport and then put them on flights withouttheir luggage was "a huge burden on the airport because itscapacity does not allow for that".
"We have asked them to organise eight flights only, and oneplane will transport luggage," Kamal said.
He said the airport did not have room to store the more than120 tonnes of luggage that departing passengers would leavebehind.
A spokesman for Cameron said Britain was trying to get theholidaymakers home quickly and safely, but described thesituation as "difficult and fluid".
"We have to be realistic that this is a complex anddifficult operation. We are working closely with the airlinecompanies, with the Egyptian authorities, to ensure that we getBritish nationals out safely," he said.
British Ambassador to Egypt John Casson said flights hadbegun departing.
"Flights are coming in which will allow us to take morepeople home today," Casson said in Sharm al-Sheikh as he triedto reassure exasperated tourists at the airport.
Thomas Cook Airlines, easyJet,privately-held Monarch, British Airways and Thomson operate direct flights between Britain and Sharmal-Sheikh.
EasyJet said it had been refused permission to flymost of its empty planes to Egypt, and that just two of its 10planned flights had been given permission to fly out of Egypt.
The other airlines said they were expecting their plannedflights to go ahead.
Britain's public airing of its concerns about a bomb beingresponsible for the Russian air crash has angered Egypt, whichdepends on tourism revenue, and drew criticism from the Kremlin,which said it had not been given details of the intelligencebehind Britain's move.
A Sinai-based group affiliated with Islamic State, themilitants who have seized swathes of Iraq and Syria, has claimedresponsibility for the crash, which, if confirmed, would make itthe jihadist organisation's first attack on civil aviation.
In his first public comments on the disaster, U.S. PresidentBarack Obama said in a radio interview: "There's a possibilitythat there was a bomb on board. And we're taking that veryseriously." (Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Michael Holden; additionalreporting by James Davey, Kylie MacLellan, Arwa Gaballa, AhmedAbouelenein and Abdelnasser Aboelfadl; Editing by StephenAddison and Peter Graff)
