Almost a quarter of scheduled flights to and from Larnaca airport, affecting 22,500 passengers were cancelled on Sunday following new government measures requiring arrivals to produce health certificates from accredited labs.
Information from Hermes Airports said that on Monday it expected a total of 32 departures by various airlines, and a total of 32 arrivals up until shortly after midnight.
According to CNA, there will be flights to and from Athens, Thessaloniki, Sofia, Vienna, Malta, Amman, Dubai, Moscow, Beirut, Munich, Brussels and Bucharest.
At Paphos, there will be eight arrivals and eight departures from and to various destinations, including Amman, Beirut, Tel Aviv, Manchester, Stansted, Luton, Glasgow and Thessaloniki, until just after midnight Monday.
A Hermes spokesperson told the Cyprus Mail, they would have no definite picture of Monday’s movement until the day was over given the fluidity of the situation.
Several aircraft that landed at Larnaca airport had low occupancy and others reached a maximum of around 50 per cent of capacity.
Some airlines including Tui, Jet2, plus Russian firms Rossiya and S7 have announced that had temporarily suspended their flights to and from Cyprus.
Reports that easyJet had also cancelled their flights to Cyprus could not be immediately confirmed. On Monday morning, the airline announced that it was suspending most flights but did not mention Cyprus as yet.
A spokesman for easyJet told the Cyprus Mail via email it was in the process of cancelling the majority of the airline’s flights for the remainder of March.
“Everyone who has been affected by cancellation has been advised or will be soon and all their options have been provided,” he added.
But according to one Cyprus Mail reader, a UK resident, the airline already cancelled all of its flights from Cyprus to the UK
“They didn’t bother to inform us via email or update their website,” the woman said. “They are also not sending any additional flights to get passengers back to the UK. We were offered a refund or the next available flight which is not until the 30th. We cannot believe we have been stranded here and they are not trying to get people back to the UK,” she added.
Another easyJet passenger said the airline appeared to be shutting Cyprus operations from Tuesday evening and resuming end of March.
“Ironically, my flight to Berlin is one of the last ones out (Tuesday 17) but my return has been cancelled (so I’m staying put). They have also cancelled another return trip to Germany in ten days. I discovered by chance, they haven’t bothered to inform me…yet,” he said.
When announcing cancellations to various countries easyJet said it had taken its decision “due to the unprecedented level of travel restrictions being imposed by governments in response to the coronavirus pandemic and significantly reduced levels of customer demand”.
“These actions will continue on a rolling basis for the foreseeable future and could result in the grounding of the majority of the easyJet fleet,” it added.
The airline said it would continue to operate rescue flights for short periods “where we can, in order to repatriate customers.”
It mentions Morocco, France, Germany and Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Israel and Morocco.
“We are currently planning some new flights to help people return home – please bear with us,” the airline said.
“As soon as these flights have been scheduled, we will update them. You will also be able to re-book onto these flights via Manage bookings as soon as they are available.”
It said if restrictions are implemented which result in the cancellation of scheduled flight programmes they would advise affected customers of their options by email and SMS which includes the option of rebooking or requesting a refund.
” On occasion we may operate some rescue flights and details will be listed on the latest travel information pages at easyJet.com”
Cyprus is not included as yet in the countries listed at the link below that passengers are asked to monitor.
https://www.easyjet.com/en/policy/coronavirus
