Fog closes Larnaca airport for three hours

By a Staff Reporter

ZERO visibility over Larnaca yesterday morning forced 15 planes to be redirected to Paphos, until dense fog began to clear up around 8am.

Larnaca airport closed down for three hours; the weather service said fog conditions were normal for this time of the year.

The redirected planes caused some congestion at Paphos airport, but other than that authorities said no major problems occurred.

Meanwhile the Kato Paphos area had some fog of its own, but visibility there was good enough to allow 15 planes to land at the airport. Andreas Opsimos, Paphos airport inspector, said that all 15 planes landing during this time were serviced normally and then headed out to their final destinations.

In addition to the weather conditions, national carrier Cyprus Airways (CY) also had to deal with a 24-hour strike by air traffic controllers in Greece. CY spokesman Tassos Angeli told the Cyprus Mail they had been notified days earlier that Olympic Airways would operate only one flight for its international destinations, so the flights to Greece were rescheduled.

Angeli said just two CY flights to Greece took place yesterday, instead of the regular five during the summer season. The last CY flight to Greece departed shortly after midnight.

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.