Pilots approve CY rescue package

CYPRUS AIRWAYS’ pilots’ union PASYPI yesterday offered the final nod of approval to the government’s rescue plan for the airline.

With 67 votes in favour and 39 against, the pilots were the last of the CY unions to decide to support the plan, which calls for pay cuts and redundancies with the aim of saving €12 million.

The main provisions of the rescue plan concern actions by the company to save €30 million and the workers contributing another €12 million — €7 million through pay cuts and the rest through shedding 140 jobs from a total of around 1,200.

The plan was approved on Tuesday by PEO and the cabin crew union, and by CYNIKA – the biggest of the five unions – and the engineers’ union on Wednesday.

The government has also pledged to give the company €20 million in the form of compensation for the extra cost incurred by the airline since 2004 due to a ban of using Turkish airspace.

The rescue plan will now be sent to the Cabinet for approval, before being sent on to parliament to be scrutinised.

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.