Transport minister: Russian and Ukrainian tourists unlikely this summer

Transport Minister Yiannis Karousos said the decision to close Cyprus’ airspace to Russian planes after Turkey said it would not impose similar sanctions will have to be carefully evaluated by the foreign ministry.

Last Sunday Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides expressed Cyprus’ support for EU measures agreed with his counterparts to close airspace to Russian planes and target measures through the global payments Swift programme.

Kasoulides said that although the economy of Cyprus is heavily dependent on tourism, it could not block the move to shut European airspace to Russian planes.

However, Kasoulides said Cyprus’ consent was given “with the reservation of our right to re-examine and/or reconsider the implementation of this decision, in the event that Turkey refuses to proceed to the closing of her airspace and proceeds with the instrumentalisation of this European decision, with the aim of attracting and transporting of Russian citizens to the occupied territory.”

Speaking during a joint conference with the Deputy Minister of Tourism Savvas Perdios, Karousos on Wednesday said that the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is harming Russia’s economy regardless of the existing EU ban on Russian aircrafts.

“There is a war at the moment, which means that, ban or no ban, we will most likely not see tourists from Russia and Ukraine this summer,” he said.

“Our efforts are now focused on attracting new markets to the island to fill the gap that will be left by the Russian and Ukrainian markets.”

According to Karousos, the sanctions imposed against Russia will translate into “a reduction of about 15 per cent of the total passenger traffic estimated for 2022, roughly around 1.6 million passengers.”

He added that the action plan for the resumption of flights that was put in place in June 2020 has recently been extended with approval from the European Commission with effect until the end of June 2022 and with a budget for the next six months of €6.1 million.

“We expect 60 airlines offering flights connecting our country with the rest of the world to take advantage of the project in the first half of 2022.”

In addition, Karousos also referred to the initiative taken by Cyprus at the European level with the promotion of the Declaration on Air Connectivity, with the main objective of supporting the aviation sector.

“We were pleased to see 13 of our EU partners welcome this initiative and we are pleased to announce that on April 7 and 8 we will host a conference in Cyprus with the participation of 13 European transport ministers, which will culminate in the signing of the declaration.”

Finally, Karousos praised TUS Airways and announced that the company was granted commercial rights for the Larnaca-Beijing-Larnaca route twice per week.

In his intervention during the conference, TUS CEO Michael Weinstein said that the company believes in Cyprus and that aim is to transform Larnaca airport into “a transit hub which will include new destinations from September, such as Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt, Marrakech in Morocco, Dubai in the UAE, as well as Jeddah and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.”

Speaking after Karousos and Weinstein, Perdios said that the loss of visitors from Russia and Ukraine will deal a hard blow to Cyprus “due to the sanctions imposed on Russia and the consequent devaluation of the rouble.”

“We must exclude those markets from our short-time plans and work on alternative markets, the situation is not going to improve anytime soon” Perdios said.

He then said that one of the government’s plans is to expand the connections with Saudi Arabia, which President Nicos Anastasiades visited recently, and France, a country that, according to Perdios, “shares many common values and interests with Cyprus”.