The EgyptAir plane crashed near the Greek Mediterranean island of Karpathos, according to reports.
Flight MS804 disappeared from radar 10 miles inside Egyptian airspace at 2.30am after taking off just under three-and-a-half hours earlier from Charles de Gaulle Airport.
Jeremy Moodey from Christian charity Embrace the Middle East told Premier that this will hit Egypt hard. Addressing the need for prayer, he said: "Pray for the relatives waiting for news and confirmation of what's happened, we can't imagine what they're going through, pray for Egypt as a country, many Christians work in the tourism industry and their jobs will be at risk if there's a downturn."
He went on to say that it will affect the tourism industry.
He said: "It will have a devastating impact I expect on the Egyptian tourism industry."
He referred back to October 2015 when it is thought a bomb on a Russian passenger plane exploded over the Sinai Peninsula minutes after it took off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh which killed all 224 people on board.
He said: "We travel regularly and support a number of projects in Egypt, I was there only in January and I can see what an impact it's having on the Egyptian economy and ordinary Egyptians.
The Foreign Office said it was working closely with the Egyptian and French authorities, with a spokesperson adding: "Our staff are in contact with the family of a British national believed to be on board and are providing support."
A major search and rescue operation has been launched by Egyptian and Greek authorities to find the remains of the aircraft, with reports of a flash in the sky over the Mediterranean.
Among those on board were a child and two babies, EgyptAir said.
The 56 passengers included 30 Egyptians, 15 French, two Iraqis and one each from Britain, Sudan, Chad, Portugal, Algeria, Canada, Belgium, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
The French government said President Francois Hollande spoke with Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi by telephone, and they agreed to "closely co-operate to establish the circumstances" in which the flight disappeared.
Jeremy Moodey told Premier: "It's always tragic when we hear a plane going missing, in this case travelling from Paris to Cairo. Our hearts and thoughts go with those on the plane and their relatives who are waiting on the news."
George Makeen from SAT 7 Christian TV channel in the Middle East told Premier's News Hour that the country is hopeful.
He said: "There's lots of good intentions along the leadership in Egypt who really want to do something good for their people, but I pray that good gives them wisdom while trying to balance between security and freedom that is needed for prosperity for people to move forward."
He said he is worried that people will fear Egypt and lose hope.
Mr Makeen went on: "people are starting to think of Egypt as an unsafe place with lots of struggles and in a sense there's that fear and that feeling that we're targeted and we're blamed - add to that the financial crisis and lots of stresses going on."
He said the tourism industry is going to suffer more: "Lots of people are losing their jobs and they don't know if there's a future for this important part of Egyptian business, it's of course going to make that even worse - but the situation was difficult even before the accident."
The Airbus A320 was built in 2003 and was flying at 37,000ft, the airline said on Twitter.
It tweeted that the pilot had logged 6,275 flying hours, including 2,101 hours on the A320, and the co-pilot had logged 2,766 hours.
Listen to Premier's Hannah Tooley speak to Jeremy Moodey here:
Listen to Premier's Hannah Tooley speak to George Makeen here:
