CY survival plan put before the board

CYPRUS Airways (CY) chairman Lazaros Savvides yesterday presented the airline’s new strategic plan to a crucial meeting of the board of directors.

Speaking earlier yesterday, Savvides said there were three reports drawn up with the help of outside consultants. These are to be discussed by the board and a text of proposals will be drawn up for presentation to the unions for discussion.

The final plan will then be submitted to the government and finally to the EU in November, Savvides said. He said yesterday’s board meeting was crucial because it would be deciding the future of the company.

Last week, the airline’s vice chairman Frixos Savvides said that a fresh round of redundancies at CY was inevitable under the new strategic plan.
The national carrier, which announced net losses of £20.4 million for the first half of this year, has to make drastic cost cuts and prove itself a viable concern in order to obtain approval from the EU for a £60 million loan. The submission of a new plan was part of the deal when the airline obtained EU approval for a short-term £30 million loan last May. This will be repaid out of the proposed £60 million to come.

Earlier this year, around 200 CY employees were let go under a watered-down version of the original plan, which had suggested axing around one-third of the airline’s 2,000 staff. The weaker plan was not enough to return the airline to profitability because the staff offloaded were mainly connected to the withdrawal of one aircraft from the fleet last November, rather than all-out cost cutting measures.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.