CIVIL aviation workers have refused to hand over an airport bus to a Cyprus Airways (CY) driver to transfer passengers from the controversial transit lounge at Larnaca to the departure area.
Last month, France’s biggest Middle Eastern tour agency threatened to break its contract with CY over the treatment of transit passengers, who were being herded into a former luggage room with no windows, no air conditioning and no toilets, to await onward flights to the Middle East.
After years of protesting to the Communications and Works Ministry, CY was last month promised a bus to transfer the beleaguered passengers, and went ahead with the employment of a driver.
A Ministry spokesman at the time passed the buck to CY saying they had given the bus and that the problems emanated from the airline’s delay in hiring a driver.
However, sources close to CY yesterday told the Cyprus Mail that when the new driver had gone to the airport to begin work, civil aviation employees refused to let him drive any of the vehicles.
“They even staged a work stoppage in protest and were objecting to him taking the bus,” the source said. “A few days later, he went back, but the same thing happened. All because union members didn’t want to deal with someone employed by Cyprus Airways.”
The Cyprus government has long touted Larnaca’s potential as a major hub for air traffic between the Middle East and Europe, but the Paris-based Lebanese tour operator George Kairoz told the Cyprus Mail last month that is clients were being treated like baggage.
He was unavailable for comment yesterday. The source said Kairoz was still protesting, but to no avail. If the Lebanese operator carries out his threat to pull out, CY could lose up to half its passenger traffic on the Paris route and endanger plans to open up a Paris-Larnaca-Dubai flight.
CY spokesman Tassos Angelis said yesterday: “We agreed with the Ministry on a solution to alleviate the problem, but this has not been possible because of the attitude of the civil aviation workers at the airport.”
Vassos Pyrgos, permanent secretary of the Communications and Works Ministry, told the Cyprus Mail he had not been informed of the situation and would look into it today.
Last month, Pyrgos said that although the transit lounge was “not the best of rooms” reports of its unsuitability had been exaggerated.
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.
