Chaos at British airports impacts Cyprus flights too

The impact of technical problems in UK air traffic control systems that affected most of Europe was also felt in Cyprus, causing some flights to be cancelled and others to be delayed, Deputy Tourism Minister Costas Koumis said on Tuesday.

“Unfortunately, we were also affected by this problem, since we had some cancellations and significant delays in a number of flights,” he said in Larnaca at a tourist business conference.

Senior Manager of marketing and communications at Hermes Airports Maria Kouroupi said that a total of 24 flights to Larnaca airport had been affected. Out of the 24 flights, six had been cancelled and are being rescheduled for Tuesday.

At Paphos airport, she said a total of 21 flights had been affected, of which four were cancelled, and are also being rescheduled for later in the day.

Kouroupi said that the problem in Italy did not reach Cyprus.

Koumis added that as the British and Italian governments have announced, the problem has been resolved, and that he hoped that there will not be similar issues in the coming days and months.

“The British [market] is the most important tourist market of Cyprus and unfortunately a large number of flights were affected by the problem that arose,” he said.

British transport minister Mark Harper said it would take days to resolve the widespread disruption to flights into and out of the country after air traffic control systems were hit by a technical problem.

Hundreds of UK flights were cancelled or delayed on Monday – one of the country’s busiest travel days – after air traffic controllers were forced to switch to manual systems.

The disruption came as Cyprus is enjoying a very strong month for tourism, which Kouroupi said was the “best ever month at Cyprus airports”.

The minister added that this year tourism has increased 27 per cent since last, and that there has been an increase in income from tourism of 34 per cent.

“We expect that this course will continue in September and until mid-October,” he said.

He added that “as the Deputy Ministry of Tourism we are monitoring the market minute by minute and striving for the best possible results.”

In the next month, Koumis will be departing for Finland, Sweden, and France to hold a series of meetings with players in the world tourism market.

“Tourism exhibitions in which we participate are constantly there, but at the same time there are also needs for regular communication with the protagonists of the global market,” he said.

He added that “the French is a market that has been on the rise in recent years in Cyprus, while this year in particular there has been a significant increase, which we welcome. The French market is a market where we expect to do even better in the near future”.