Non-smokers hit out at duty free bags

By Charlie Charalambous

CYPRUS Airways is damaging the island’s tourism and political prospects, not by strikes but displaying tobacco advertising on duty free bags.

This claim was slapped on the national carrier yesterday by the Non-smoking League, which is outraged that CY peddles lethal duty free cigarettes instead of the island’s cultural heritage.

Non-smokers are unhappy that the airline adorns its plastic bags with tobacco brand names, and not pictures of Aphrodite or Ayia Napa beaches, which they say represent the historic and social life of the island.

“Cyprus Airways has the capability and the chance to project on a daily basis the island’s charms and culture with beneficial consequences to the economy and solving the national problem,” a press release from the League yesterday.

It suggested that the airline should work with the Cyprus Tourism Organisation towards this aim, but “instead, Cyprus Airways promotes killer products like cigarettes on its plastic bags, something which even the smallest corner shop doesn’t do,” the press release said.

Tobacco advertising is only banned on television and radio in Cyprus.

The airline is currently operating non-smoking flights from Larnaca to London and Athens, although pilots are allowed to puff away in the cockpit.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.