By Jean Christou
THE CYPRUS Airways pilots’ union Pasipy said yesterday industrial disputes should not be mixed up with passenger safety, following the latest delayed flight blamed on a pilot.
Although the pilots are currently in dispute with the company over promotions, Pasipy president Chris Christodoulou said Friday’s incident had nothing to do with this, and was wholly related to passenger safety.
He was responding to reports of an eight-hour delay on the Amsterdam route on Friday morning in which more than 400 passengers were inconvenienced.
There have been two other incidents in the past week, with flights to Amsterdam and Paris on consecutive days delayed by the reported illness of pilots.
The company suspects Pasipy was applying pressure in the industrial dispute and is investigating. The pilots involved say they have certificates from the company doctor.
According to reports of Friday’s incident, the Larnaca-Paphos-Amsterdam flight took off as usual in the morning to pick up passengers and a new crew in Paphos.
But before the plane could take off with the new crew the captain discovered some technical difficulties.
By the time the problem was fixed, the captain refused to fly the aircraft on to Amsterdam, saying that because it was a same-day return journey his hours would be exceeded if he did so.
Neither the first nor second crew was therefore in a position to fly the aircraft to Amsterdam. It was also decided not to call in a third crew from Nicosia because by the time they reached Paphos airport, then flew to Amsterdam and back, their duty time would have been exceeded as well.
The only alternative was to fly the plane back to Larnaca to pick up another crew who could take the plane to Amsterdam.
The passengers who had originally embarked in Larnaca were then asked to stay at Paphos while the second crew took the plane back. And because the aircraft had enough fuel on board to fly to Amsterdam, some had to be removed to ensure a safe landing at Larnaca.
At Larnaca a standby crew boarded the plane and flew it back to Paphos to pick up the original passengers. The flight then continued to Amsterdam with the third crew some eight hours late.
Cyprus Airways officials could not be contacted yesterday for comment.
Christodoulou, who was himself the pilot involved, said the incident was not the ‘comedy of errors’ it was being portrayed as: “Industrial disputes must not be confused with safety issues,” he said. “There were two very serious technical problems with the aircraft.”
He said the resulting delay would have stretched his time two hours beyond the thirteen and a half allowed under regulations. Pilots can still undertake to fly at their own discretion in such circumstances, but Christodoulou chose not to do so.
He said reroutings around Yugoslav airspace because of the Kosovo crisis also complicated the issue.
Christodoulou confirmed that he had flown the plane back to Larnaca where the third crew took over. Asked why the third crew was able to take the flight all the way through to Amsterdam without the usual crew changeover in Paphos, Christodoulou said that the third crew had been on standby, whereas the second crew would have been involved in a complicated rota involving flights to other destinations.
Normally he said a crew would already be waiting in Paphos – at the five- star Azia Beach Hotel – from the previous day’s schedule and they would take over. Likewise the crew who take the flight from Larnaca to Paphos would go on to other flight duties on the same day.
