Unreliable Cyprus Airways

Hi All.

I have seen this in the Cyprus Mail. I hope many of you are not planning to fly Cyprus Airways in the run up to Christmas. This airline is always having strike problems and controlled by militant unions who bring misery to travellers.
Its time they started living in the 21st century.

The airline is on the brink of bankruptcy and has just received money to help it out, but with this strike, its future is not assured.

Here is the article

CY strike to affect 107 flights and 12,000 people
By Jean Christou

AROUND 12,000 passengers due to travel on 107 flights will be affected if three days of strikes at Cyprus Airways (CY) go ahead, the airline said yesterday.

A day after CY’s biggest union CYNIKA announced a 24-hour strike for December 12 and a 48-hour strike on December 17 and 18, the sides were no nearer a solution and the airline was flooded with calls from concerned travellers.

The company said the strike would put them over the edge financially but was examining a number of scenarios that might ease the misery of passengers.

This could also include leasing other aircraft but while that would assist in carrying out flight commitments, it would cost the airline hundreds of thousands of pounds.

CY spokesman Kyriacos Kyriacou told the Cyprus Mail the airline’s board was due to meet last night to examine what could be done. “All possibilities are being examined,” he said.

Kyriacou said the airline’s other unions were not on strike. This included the bulk of pilots, engineers and cabin crew. If contingency plans can be made, flights could yet be carried out.

“Our aim is to do as much as possible to serve the public with the minimum of disruption,” he said.

No one spoke yesterday of the possibility the strikes would be called off despite another attempt with the Labour Minister at settling the dispute over job transfers.

A general assembly of all the workers will be held this morning to vote on the strike measures. “We expect a majority in favour,” said CYNIKA head Andreas Pierides. “They were ready to go out on strike last week but we told them it must be done in accordance with industrial procedures.”

The union has been up in arms over CY’s plans to outsource ground handling services at the airports to Swissport & GAP Vassilopoulos. The national carrier insists no jobs will be lost, while it will enable the airline to carry out the services more cost effectively.

The company says it could save nearly £2 million a year. Around 140 employees are would be affected by the shift but CY says their jobs and benefits would not be endangered.

However staff fear they would no longer be CY employees but merely employees of the joint venture company.

CYNIKA said the first paragraph of the agreement states that the 140 people would not be employees of Cyprus Airways as of May 1, 2008.”

Pierides said the workers would never accept this.

“We want to continue to be regarded as Cyprus Airways employees. This is the minimum we will accept,” he said.

Under the proposed joint venture, CY would hold over 25 per cent of shares, giving it a strong input in decision-making, should they win the contract being tendered by airport operator Hermes, which has pledged to open ground handling services to competition by next April.

At the moment, CY only performs about 20-25 per cent of the total work they hope to be doing with Swissport, assuming the venture wins one of the two licences being offered by Hermes.