Olympic Airways ticket-holders must change ticket before the end of the week

TICKET-HOLDERS for flights with Olympic Airways after September 28 will not be able to fly unless they contact their travel agent before this September 25, it emerged yesterday.

Olympic Airways will effectively cease trading on September 28, but although Olympic Air – the new company which will take over most of its routes – will start trading on September 29 and will operate its first flights on October 1, Olympic Air has no obligation towards Olympic Airways customers.

This means that Olympic Airways ticket-holders must either ask for a refund or reschedule their flights before September 28, when Olympic Airways is deleted from the computerised ticketing system – but in practice, they should make alternative arrangements before the weekend.

According to reports, a total of around 1,500 people are still affected – not all of them in Cyprus – but existing ticket-holders here are only now being informed by email or telephone of the need to take urgent action to secure a flight.

A representative of Olympic Airways’ main local agent, Amathus Travel Ltd, told the Mail that those mainly affected are booked on direct and connecting flights to Madrid, Johannesburg and New York, but she did not know the number of travellers involved.

She said that if an Amathus customer calls before the end of the week to arrange a flight before September 28, then they would have no problem arranging another flight, subject to availability.

But the real problem regarding later flights is that “so far we don’t even have a contact number for Olympic Air. We have already taken a number of calls, but we have not been able to help some people. It pains us not to be able to provide them with the service they need.”

• Amathus Travel Ltd can be contacted on 22-456545.

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.