CYPRUS AIRWAYS flights could face delays and cancellations next week if a strike by pilots and cabin crew goes ahead.
Pilots union PASIPY said 140 pilots and dozens of cabin crew would stage a two-hour work stoppage tomorrow between 8.30 and 10.30am in protest against the continuation of route transfers to subsidiary airline Eurocypria.
PASIPY chairman Efthymios Liasis said that if the national carrier’s management reacted unfavourably to the stoppage, a strike would follow on Thursday lasting the duration of the Eurocypria flight to Warsaw and back.
““We hope the Thursday strike will be avoided, but we will see how the management reacts.”
Pilots say the decision to transfer four routes – Birmingham, Warsaw, Budapest and Frankfurt – to the struggling Eurocypria has led to unnecessary redundancies for Cyprus Airways (CY) staff.
“We continue to oppose the transfer,” Liasis said. ”If they can’t find work for Eurocypria they should close it down and bring business to Cyprus Airways.”
He also said flights scheduled to leave during the two-hour stoppage on Monday could be rescheduled by managers, so that “not too much discomfort” was caused to passengers.
CY chairman Constantinos Loizides reassured yesterday that the airline had rescheduled the seven affected flights but said PASIPY’s decision to go ahead with industrial action went “outside the due process” of negotiations between unions and management mediated by the Ministry of Labour: “This is incorrect and illegal.”
Loizides said PASIPY’s Eurocypria-bashing was distracting attention away from the major issue – how to boost the troubled airline’s productivity.
“Eurocypria is always brought up by unions whenever there’s a crisis. They should be focusing instead on discussing with us the long list of measures we want to implement to make Cyprus Airways less costly and more productive.”
Management and employees are still battling it out over an action plan put forward by bosses to bring the airline out of the red, with the prospect of hundreds of redundancies emerging as the main sticking point in negotiations.
Costas Demetriou, president of CYNIKA, the largest union for cabin staff, confirmed the 250 cabin crew members represented by his union would not be joining the pilots on strike.
“We will have talks with other staff unions too over the weekend, but we expect 95 per cent of staff to be at work as normal tomorrow,” CY chairman Loizides said.
Company losses reached over £30 million for the first six months of this year. Forecasts for the rest of the year are bleak.
Cyprus Airways has announced the following changes to flights:
•CY322 and CY312 (Larnaca – Athens) will merge: new departure time of 08.00
•CY504 (Larnaca – Paphos – London): new departure time of 11.30 from Larnaca and 13:00 from Paphos.
•CY386 (Larnaca – Paris): new departure time of11.30
•CY352 (Larnaca – Zurich): new departure time of 11.45
•CY412 (Larnaca – Milan): new departure time of 12.00
•CY376 (Larnaca – Frankfurt): new departure time of 12.15
Passengers are advised to call the airline’s call centre on 80000008 or visit www.cyprusairways.com for more information.
