Failed airline’s dismantling due to begin next week

AS THE process of dismantling Eurocypria is set to begin next week, politicians continued bickering yesterday over the how and why the charter airline was allowed to go under.

A meeting of the airline’s creditors is to take place at the Finance Ministry on Monday. Its purpose is to appoint a liquidator to settle all of Eurocypria’s outstanding dues and receivables – making official the company’s long-awaited demise.

Meanwhile Eurocypria employees were yesterday paid their November salaries, the percentage of their 13th salaries, and cashed out their provident fund.

Unions and the government are negotiating a redundancy package for the some 300 Eurocypria workers who are now out of a job.

Eurocypria unionist Elisseos Michail said they were still waiting on the government to discuss the compensation scheme.

He said the layoffs should be viewed as a forced, not voluntary redundancy, thus entitling the staff to higher payouts.

Reports suggested a vast difference in the compensation amounts proposed by the unions and the government.

Eurocypria – which received a €35 million cash injection earlier this year to survive – was set up by Cyprus Airways in 1991 as a charter airline. It is 100 per cent state owned, having been bought by the government from the national carrier some five years ago. The current administration recently decided the company was no longer economically viable.

Earlier this month the European Commission said the airline could not be merged with, or be absorbed by the national carrier Cyprus Airways, and that Eurocypria staff could only be compensated after liquidation. The commission banned the government from assuming Eurocypria’s obligations, before or after the liquidation.

Meanwhile at the plenum yesterday MPs played the blame game over Eurocypria. The European Party’s Ricos Erotocritou said the Finance Minister should be “ashamed” for having asked parliament to release the €35 million, which now appeared to be money down the drain.

Deputy Stavros Evagorou, of ruling AKEL, said Eurocypria had been a “ticking time bomb” for several years but that the bomb happened to explode during the current administration. He went on to warn that Cyprus Airways was equally at risk because of “baggage from the past.”

Other deputies called for an investigation into both airlines’ financial activities over the past 20 years.

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