Sir,
As an English woman married to a British Cypriot and for the past 38 years we have been more than regular visitors to the island. However, our experience at the airport last Wednesday can only be described at best as ludicrous and at worst absolutely appalling.
We came to Cyprus for a 12-day visit but unfortunately during this time me mother-in-law was taken ill and admitted to the general hospital. As she is widowed and has no other family, my husband and I took the decision that I should stay indefinitely, while he travelled to and from the UK every 10 days or so (he has his own business and has to be there). Consequently we have had several trips to the airport during this time.
Each time we came to the airport, it was impossible to park a car. The main car parks were closed, even though there were plenty of empty spaces in them. As we drive a Z car we were directed to the rental car park. Because of the confusion and sheer pandemonium, people had abandoned their cars everywhere, making it even more difficult to park.
However, last Wednesday was the pinnacle. We arrived three hours prior to my husband’s departure time. Traffic into the airport was almost at a standstill as far back as the roundabout. Passengers were getting out of their cars with their luggage and running towards departures. As I was driving, my husband and I had to say goodbye quickly in the car once we got to the airport entrance, before I was waved on by a policeman. I managed to drive round and did park the car and ran into departures to see my husband off.
The scenes that greeted me were like something from a disaster movie. There were hoards of people everywhere without any form of order. I found my husband among many others supposedly queuing to check in for Cyprus Airways. Everybody was pushing and shoving to gain some position in the absence of any proper queuing system. The air conditioning was not working, and people were getting very frustrated and agitated, as nobody seemed to be moving very quickly through check in. When we eventually got to the check-in desk, we were told, and it was clear, that the reason for the hold ups was because the conveyor belt that carries the luggage from the check-in desks kept stopping. There was nothing the staff could do except wait until it kicked into action again. Apparently this is a regular occurrence every Wednesday and Sunday. The reason we were told was due to too many flights coming in on those days.
Things didn’t improve from then, as he had to join an ever increasing haphazard line of people trying to get into passport control. Once he got into passport control after about a 45 minute “queue” it became even worse.
He said it became a bit of a scrum (to be polite), with large groups of people openly pushing their way to the front. My husband was not prepared to let that happen and spoke up and said they had to join the “queue” like the rest of them. They took absolutely no notice and continued to push their way in. It almost developed into a full blown boxing match. Other passengers, mostly Brits, joined forces with my husband and would not let them in front of them. He eventually got through with no time to spare, as they were calling his flight for boarding. He had arrived three hours early!
A number of people were complaining bitterly and saying that this was not the first time they had experienced this type of treatment and they were so fed up that they vowed they would not come back to Cyprus again, but would prefer to go back to Spain where it is more organised and civilised.
I would therefore urge whoever it is in charge of tourism to look at this very serious problem. They are spending presumably millions on extending the airport. They cannot cope with the amount of visitors they already have, never mind encourage more visitors.
Cyprus is a beautiful island with lovely people and it is such a shame that because of extremely bad management the tourism industry gets such a bad reputation.
We are planning to retire here some
time soon and I do hope and pray that this fiasco at the airport is sorted out! In the meantime I will not fly in or out of Cyprus on a Wednesday or Sunday.
Barbara Poyiatzis
