CYPRUS Airways (CY) pilots are not concerned about the national carrier’s plans to cut loose its charter firm Eurocypria, they said yesterday.
A spokesman for CY pilots’ union PASIPY told the Cyprus Mail that as long as the company honoured current agreements with them, it could do whatever else it wanted.
In an interview with the Sunday Mail, CY chairman Haris Loizides said the recent decision on the fleet renewal had signalled the beginning of the end of the decade-old relationship between the national carrier and Eurocypria.
The move will end the ongoing conflict between the charter firm’s pilots and their CY counterparts and observers say it is also likely to herald a stock exchange listing for Eurocypria, along with the advent of new partners into the airline.
“The company can do what it likes with Eurocypria, sell it, close it down, bring in people from abroad.” the PASIPY spokesman said yesterday
“We have certain agreements which Loizides has signed and we expect the company to abide by them. There is no provision in the agreement for what will happen to Eurocypria.”
The PASIPY spokesman said the agreement they had with the company for a share of captain vacancies in Eurocypria expired at the end of this year and would probably be renegotiated at that time.
“The issue will probably be addressed then,” he said. “Let them keep this agreement and then we will discuss the rest as it comes up.”
Eurocypria currently leases three Airbus A320s from CY, but these will be returned to the national carrier at the end of 2002 and replaced in 2003 with four leased Boeing 747s, which seat 189 passengers, 15 more than the A320s, making them more advantageous for charter flights.
Loizides said this would put an end to the conflict over captain promotions, which has dogged the charter firm for years. Eurocypria pilots want to be treated as a separate company, while CY pilots demand common seniority.
“The moment we bring the remaining aircraft, there are no more claims for common seniority or captainship or whatever,” Loizides told the Sunday Mail.
A new mediation effort to solve the latest round in the captains’ dispute begins today.
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.
