Cyprus Airways (CY) has cancelled another Paphos-UK flight, dealing the town yet a further blow, officials said yesterday.
The decision to suspend the weekly Paphos–Birmingham route comes within days of the national carrier’s cancellation of the twice-weekly Paphos-Heathrow as of April 2011.
However, bowing to intense pressure the airline yesterday backed down on the Heathrow cuts for the time being, sources said later yesterday. The matter is to be discussed next week.
Speaking about the Birmingham route yesterday, CY spokesman Kyiacos Kyriacou told the Cyprus Mail that finances were at issue.
“The twice-weekly Heathrow flight and the weekly Birmingham flight were being stopped as part of a wider raft of measures being taken to prevent the company from incurring further losses,” he said.
These measures include the renewal of the entire fleet of aircraft by April next year, which, according to Kyriacou will help make savings.
In addition, a number of CY overseas offices in capital cities have been closed and others are being operated by commercial representatives. Alongside this, the CY spokesman said the airline has increased its cargo rate for the export of goods such as vegetables.
“These will all make a lot of savings for the carrier and improve productivity,” he said. “And, we are not the only company to cut routes from Paphos.”
Local MP Costas Costantinou said yesterday if there was “continued provocation” by CY towards Paphos, and if they want to improve their economic situation, the airline should start from another point and not by cutting flights to and from Paphos airport.”
“It is not right for Cyprus Airways to behave as a national air carrier only in cases where they are asking for state help to financially bail them out, and then to behave as a private company when it decides to terminate routes it considers not to be viable,” he said.
The President of the Paphos Chamber of Commerce, George Leptos said yesterday: “The cancellation of the Birmingham flight is yet another obstacle to attracting tourism, and dynamic action is now due.”
Leptos said that between January and September 2010, occupancy for the Birmingham flight was 85 per cent. He called on Cyprus Airways to “put the knife to the bone” and not to axe flights as a way of cost cutting.
Paphos Mayor Savvas Vergas said: “We will not remain without a reaction to the cancellation of the flight to and from Birmingham after the decision to cancel the Heathrow flight. CY is not a private company but is the national carrier and has an obligation to help the country.”
Tourism Minister Antonis Paschalides said the decision went against state efforts to attract more tourists to Cyprus.’
He said CY must re-examine its decision. “Heathrow is not just any airport in Europe but the biggest in the UK, whose market provides 70 per cent of all tourism in Cyprus, especially in Paphos. It also connects with all British airports and is the centre of hundreds of other flights with connections all over the world,” he said, adding that neither he nor the CTO had been informed about the Birmingham flight.
He said he fully supported the position of Paphos officials.
Kyriacou said the airlines decision was final, although at the Paphos mayor’s request, they would meet with him and other officials to discuss the matter on Monday.
