CY sells off prime real estate for €3.1m

 

NATIONAL CARRIER Cyprus Airways (CY) on Friday announced that it had proceeded with the sale of prime Nicosia real estate, injecting over €3m into its parched coffers.

According to the announcement, the ailing airline sold two properties on Gladstone Street and Byron Avenue in Nicosia for a total sum of €3.1 million on August 6. The two properties were bought by a private individual.

Proceeds from the sale will likely go towards funding the national carrier’s early retirement scheme which aims to shave off almost half the staff as part of yet another restructuring plan to get the airline out of the red.

The European Commission is expected to decide after the summer on the viability of the submitted restructuring plan and also on whether the government has violated state aid rules by providing millions of euros to keep the airline afloat.

More recently, the government decided to help CY meet its short-term cash needs by disbursing a year early the €5 million-odd annual compensation paid to the company as a result of the Turkish airspace ban on CY.

The airspace ban compensation has the approval of the European Commission, but it remains to be seen whether the rest of the money channelled to the airline over the years by the government will pass the strict state aid rules of Brussels.

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.