By Jean Christou
A Paphos businessman allegedly at the centre of the Cyprus Airways (CY) ‘hijacking’ at Athens airport on Saturday has asked the Minister of Communications and Works for an investigation, he said yesterday.
Kyriacos Droushiotos, vice president of the Paphos Chamber of Commerce told the Cyprus Mail how passengers were allegedly left for hours in a small room with no water or food while the Airbus A310 was being repaired after being hit by a high loader on the tarmac before the midnight flight was due to depart.
Following clearance from Greek engineers, the captain decided to take the Paphos-bound flight directly to Larnaca, its final destination, angering passengers who, in the ensuing row, clashed with police in an attempt to stop the plane leaving Athens.
CY says the move was in the interests of safety but a group of passengers insulted the Greek engineer and called him a fool
The plane eventually left at 5am when around 70 passengers opted to spend the night in Athens, paid for by CY.
“I know they consider me to be the person making the problems but they left us in a room for three hours without water or food,” Droushiotos said. He said two people were taken to hospital for treatment because of the way passengers were treated. “All we wanted was a safe flight. Our concern was safety,” he said.
He also alleges CY informed anyone staying behind that they would have to find their own way back to Cyprus. “We didn’t know what to do,” he said.
Droushiotis also hinted that the CY captain may have had ulterior motives and not wanted to fly the extra time it would have taken to go to Paphos.
During work-to-rule disputes with the airline CY pilots have often stranded passengers by ending a shift they would normally extend as allowed under international rules.
“I believe there were many reasons for the change of plans, artificial ones, ” Droushiotis said. “They wanted to avoid the flight (to Paphos). They didn’t consider us.”
Questioned earlier on this aspect CY spokesman Tassos Angelis said yesterday the suggestion was “nonsense” and that airline remains adamant that whatever the reason the flight was diverted it was not the business of the passengers to take matter into the own hands. “Even if that was the case it was not up any passengers to overrule the captain,” Angelis said. “That would be an internal matter for the company.”
He added that as far as the safety of the flight was concerned, CY had done everything by the book. ‘There are regulations and international laws and we abide by them,” he said.
Rules include even calling the plane’s makers Airbus for clearance when necessary and following their advice, Angelis said. He said in the event of a problem airlines can be told to complete one leg to home base depending on what repairs are carried out and if they are deemed safe to fly.
CY is currently awaiting reports on the technical side of the dispute as part of its investigation into the incident.
“Private individual are free to decide the route of their own cars so they should leave it to us to decide the routes of our flights,” Angelis said.
CY intends to come down hard on passengers who are unruly and jeopardise the safety of any flights.
Angelis the airline has not experienced many such incidents but that they are on the increase. For the most part, he said cabin crew encounter a few rude passengers or those who refuse to comply with smoking bans but they usually back off after being approached by the captain.
He said that unruly behaviour is not considered air rage unless the safety of a flight is compromised.
CY, in its most serious air rage incident to date, has blacklisted a passenger who groped a stewardess last May and has pressed charges with police.
Angelis said the alleged offender recently tried to book a ticket with the airline but staff notified headquarters and he was not allowed to fly.
Other measures CY is looking are the possibility of agreeing with other airlines on a blanket blacklist of offenders.
“We are studying what other airlines do,” he said. “The point is there is no legal framework and the law needs to be changed but we are working with the Justice Ministry to see what we can do to have stricter regulations.”
