CY to axe Sri Lanka route

CYPRUS Airways (CY) is axing its Sri Lanka flights from the end of this month, spokesman Tassos Angelis said yesterday.

“We are restructuring our network and this is part of it,” Angelis said. “It was considered by the specialists that it would be better to suspend it.”

The Larnaca to Colombo in Sri Lanka flights began in November via Dubai, where CY was already flying twice a week. The airline increased its flights to Dubai to four a week to accommodate the Colombo route.

CY was taking advantage of Dubai’s Fifth-Freedom rights, which allow the airline to carry passengers in and out of Dubai from third country destinations.

The national carrier is now in discussions with another airline flying out of Dubai to try and work out a co-operation agreement to take passengers from Larnaca to Colombo via Gulf state, in all a nine-hour flight.

Angelis said that as part of its action plan to see the airline through tough times, the restructuring would also be looking at other routes, but he said nothing had been decided yet on cutting flights to other destinations.

He said part of the problem with the Sri Lanka route was that the airline did not have enough time to cultivate the market and establish its presence.

The Dubai-Colombo route is extremely competitive, with some airlines offering special deals for as little as $100.

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.