Transport Minister Yiannis Karousos said on Monday that they would allow into Cyprus the passengers of two flights that arrived after the 6pm health certificate deadline for entry, but would take legal action against easyJet for defying the ban.
He warned that the arrival of the flights – one at Larnaca and one at Paphos – was a one-off and would not happen again while the new entry regulations announced on Sunday were in force.
“We will not allow this again,” he said as he spoke to irate relatives waiting outside Larnaca airport. They had originally been told that the passengers, many of them returning students, would not be allowed entry.
All passengers will be quarantined for 14 days.
Karousos said that the company’s agents had told the government that the passengers had the necessary certificates but later “we were told that most probably they don’t have them.”
“No company or anybody should try to violate the decree,” he said.
Karousos said that the passengers should never have been allowed on the planes.
“What concerns me is the irresponsibility of those who let them on the plane.”
He said that the government would see what measures would be taken against the company or its representatives who allowed the passengers to board.
As of 6pm on Monday entry to Cyprus is only permitted to citizens and legal residents who present a recent health certificate from an approved accredited organisation and/or a laboratory from their country of origin. The medical certificate must not be older than four days.
The easyJet flight from Manchester arrived at Paphos at 7.15pm, while the other was an easyJet flight from Gatwick which arrived in Larnaca at 7.30pm.
Tempers ran high as passengers on the flights were initially told they could not get disembark.
“They won’t let us off the plane,” said one passenger, Frank, who contacted the Cyprus Mail.
He added that he is a permanent resident of Cyprus and has nowhere to go in the UK.
“What I’m I going to do there for a month and a half?” he said, expressing concerns over his two cats in his Limassol home.
“Who is going to take care of them?” he asked.
Another passenger on board a plane that landed at the Paphos airport posted videos on social media.
“Police won’t let us get off the plane, police are fighting us back like we are some kind of criminals,” the woman said. She said two people had fainted.
A Qatar Airways flight which arrived at 6.02pm with 14 passengers on board will be sent back.
A flight from Athens also arrived after the deadline but had no passengers.
Karousos also said that because the foreign ministry has been receiving many calls from Cypriots stranded abroad, either because they were on holiday or for health reasons the government would make announcements on Tuesday about “what will happen with these cases, to provide solutions.”
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