‘No pilots will be axed’

CYPRUS Airways (CY) vice-chairman Frixos Savvides pledged yesterday that no pilots would be axed as part of a strategic plan to make the airline a viable enterprise.

The reassurance came after Savvides met with pilots union PASYPI, the first concerned group to be shown the text of proposals for the restructuring of the debt-ridden national carrier.

CY, 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 functional business 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.

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 made redundant were mainly connected to the withdrawal of one aircraft from the fleet last November, rather than all-out cost cutting measures.

Savvides explained yesterday why sacking of pilots was ruled out: “When you have thousands of hours of accumulated unused leave, which translates into a few million pounds, then it makes no sense to fire [these] people.”

For its part, PASYPI said it would ponder the airline’s proposals and would get back to the board next week with its own recommendations. However, insiders hinted the union was cautiously pleased.

“Everything is negotiable,” commented PASYPI head Andreas Georgiou.

Even assuming the first hurdle of the pilots is overcome, CY has to deal with the rest of the staff and, if the airline’s history is anything to go by, stiff resistance is expected from trade unions.
Nevertheless, the signs are that CY’s board is prepared to play hardball this time round: the airline has indicated that unless dynamic cost-cutting measures are taken by November, it will have no money to pay salaries.

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.