Flights from Ireland

Sir,
As a family living in Ireland who have enjoyed Cyprus as a holiday destination for many years culminating in our purchasing a property in Paphos in 2003, we are extremely concerned at the increasing difficulty in arranging air travel to/and from Ireland.

We normally travel with Helios and had noticed a significant drop in the quality of service in the past 18 months – particularly in delayed flights. There has been an enormous level of bad publicity here over the recent incident with the difficulties experienced by Irish soccer fans travelling back to Ireland. As a result I believe a huge opportunity of impressing approx 15,000 soccer visitors to the island as a holiday destination has been lost. In fact, because of the Helios incident, it seems to have had the opposite effect.

We are due to travel shortly to Paphos for a six-week visit and had a number of inconvenient changes to our Helios arrangements imposed on us. The final insult is that we have been advised that the airline has cancelled all its direct flights to/from Ireland for November, regardless of bookings confirmed. Obviously, the fact that we are frequent fliers with them is of no importance or concern. The alternative options offered were very unsatisfactory. This change also meant that we had to cancel a rental booking from Ireland on our property. This loss to us, and Cyprus, is the Canary Island’s gain.

Cyprus as a holiday destination and particularly as a holiday home investment location for Irish customers will disappear unless the air flight arrangements fiasco is sorted out. Cyprus is a beautiful country with wonderful welcoming people. Don’t let the special relationship with the Irish holidaymaker be destroyed. Does anybody care?
Brian Whelan, Dublin

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.