PRESIDENT Tassos Papadopoulos warned Cyprus Airways (CY) pilots yesterday that if they continued their belligerence, the airline would be forced to close down.
“It is the first time I hear that we can save the company by having a strike,” he said, referring to the claim of pilots’ union PASIPY that they were the ones that wanted to save the airline, and not the management.
PASIPY has said consistently in recent weeks that pilots are being driven into a corner and forced to take strike action because the government wants to close the ailing carrier and needs a scapegoat.
Both sides have been in dispute since January over differing interpretations on what was actually agreed under an already controversial rescue package for the company.
Pilots say the company agreed their salaries would be cut 15 per cent while another 10 per cent would be taken from benefits. Other CY employees were to be subject to a 25 per cent across-the-board wage cut.
PASIPY said, however, than when the time came, they also had 25 per cent slashed from their salaries instead of the agreed 15. The company says their interpretation is wrong, and while the union has been seeking a dialogue ever since, management has been playing hardball.
The latest crisis erupted when management failed to answer by Friday a series of 15 questions asked by PASIPY. The union said it waited all day but the answer never came. Members then decided to call the strike.
Papadopoulos said the rescue package providing for the pay cuts had already been given to the EU, which is examining whether to allow the government to guarantee a £58 million loan for CY to help it back on its feet. The state-owned airline posted over £25 million in pre-tax losses for 2005.
Papadopoulos said the strike was another setback for the company and added that the wages issue could not be changed.
“This cannot be done,” he said. “This will not change and the company has not promised them otherwise. If the pilots fail to understand this, they will close the company the way they are going.”
The President’s comments were echoed by Transport Minister Haris Thrasou. “With the way they’re behaving, they’re leading Cyprus Airways to bankruptcy,” he said.
PASIPY spokesman Tassos Christofides told a news conference in Nicosia earlier yesterday the pilots had been left no choice except to strike. “There is no way we wanted to inconvenience passengers and we offer a thousand apologies,” he said. “This was not the aim of the strike.”
He said the pilots did not want to see the collapse of the company, and called for a dialogue.
The Union’s president Polis Economou told the Sunday Mail last night they still had not heard from management – “which surprises me,” he said. “However, I think there will be some movement and hopefully we will see next week. “We are waiting to hear from them,” he added.
