THOUSANDS of Cyprus Airways (CY) passengers will face flight delays of up to five hours on Monday due to a four-hour strike by pilots.
Late yesterday CY issued a new timetable under a contingency plan but the majority of flights have been postponed until after midday on Monday when the strike ends.
A few of the flights will take place before 8am, prior to the industrial action but the knock-on effect of the four hours when all aircraft will be grounded, will take the delays well into the early hours of Tuesday.
CY said more than 2,400 passenger and some 25 flights will be affected
The company reacted angrily yesterday, saying they had received notice of the strike only at the last minute.
“These strike measures are unreasonable, irregular, and unjustifiable and an insult to all of our passengers,” said CY spokesman Kyriacos Kyriacou.
“During a crisis period for the economy and especially for international air transport, this kind of reaction undermines any parallel effort that is taken to strengthen the company and ensure its survival. This action is dangerous and threatens both the company’s present and its future.”
And again, the company’s image would be damaged, Kyriacou said.
But pilots union PASIPY chairman Andreas Georgiou told the Cyprus Mail last night the four-hour strike was necessary to call all the members of the union to a general assembly to decide future action with regards to their collective agreement.
“Discussions have been going on for more than two years and we can’t seem to find a solution (with the airline),” he said. “A decision has to be taken by the general assembly and all of the pilots have to be there.”
Georgiou said CY has been systematically violating the collective agreement with relation to working hours. “This is not about wages,” he said. “This issue is being dealt with by the courts. We are asking for our collective agreement to be respected as far as our hours and leave are concerned.”
He said even the Labour Ministry had confirmed in writing that the company was violating the agreement. PASIPY now needed all of its members to take a decision on what to do next, Georgiou said.
CY says PASIPY was the only one of the airline’s five unions which refused to sign deals with the company recently that would have ensured industrial peace for the coming years.
“Instead, they continuously come with new demands,” Kyriacou said;
“So we would like to ask the pilots’ union to reconsider their responsibilities and consider the catastrophe they will bring on the company due to this strike. We would like to make it clear that the company is not in a position to spend one more cent unnecessarily. Staff have been told this.”
The airline apologised to the public for the inconvenience they will suffer due to the strike.
