CHANTING SLOGANS and brandishing placards with the message “strike-unemployment-expatriation”, employees of ailing state-owned airline Eurocypria yesterday blocked the entrance to Larnaca Airport in an impromptu work stoppage.
Protesting the final decision to put Eurocypria through a controlled bankruptcy – as well as the European Commission’s rejection of the state’s quest to merge the airline with state charter Cyprus Airways (CY) – around 320 workers carried out a sitting protest on the roundabout leading to the airport a little after 9am.
The demonstration only lasted for around half an hour, but not before creating traffic jams and general disruption for the airport’s departing and arriving passengers.
The protesting employees then continued their demonstration in the airport’s departures lounge.
“The 320 workers at Eurocypria are not begging for compensations, nor money, but they are asking to return to their jobs,” Andreas Kalos, head of the Eurocypria pilots’ union, said.
“Our colleagues have for a few days now been experiencing their own Golgotha due to clumsy handling [of the issue],” he added.
He said the employees were now awaiting an invitation by President Demetris Christofias to meet and find a solution to the matter.
“The people who are today in the streets – and who will remain on the streets for the next few days until the problem is fixed – are youths; they are not begging for compensation or money, they are asking for work,” said Kalos. “There are ways, there is work, there are airplanes that aren’t manned and this is what we are asking for.”
Referring to the EC decision to reject a merger with Cyprus Airways, Kalos said this “was nothing new to us”, as when the CY restructuring was approved in 2006, there was a provision barring the two airlines from merging until 2017.
During yesterday’s protest apart from the road leading to the airport, entry was blocked to all the car parks, while a line of cars had formed from people waiting to go in. Many tourists were forced to gather their luggage and walk into the airport in fear of missing their flights.
Finance Minister Charilaos Stavrakis yesterday said the government would announce in immediate days a fair plan for Eurocypria’s controlled clearance.
He added that the plan being prepared provided compensation for Eurocypria employees, on top of the redundancies they are entitled to.
Stavrakis said the government’s position was that for CY to take on Eurocypria’s operations, it would demand added staff and that priority would be given to the departing staff.
He said he was saddened by the views that have been expressed over the past few days – the employees held protests outside the Finance Ministry on Friday and called for Stavrakis to stand down.
“The only thing I can be accused of is making excessive efforts to keeping the company alive,” said Stavrakis. “However the damages were increasing and the company had to close down, as the EC bans the government from supporting it financially.”
