Filenews 24 March 2021
Huge interest from airlines to strengthen their base in Larnaca and Paphos with more planes and flights, as they consider that the protocol that Cyprus has, offers to their passengers, but also to the companies themselves stability that they want to exploit, according to the Minister of Transport Communications and Works, Giannis Karousos, who assures the CYPE the full readiness of the airports, to welcome an increased number of tourists since mid-May.
"Cyprus airports are ready to serve a large number of passengers and for this purpose several meetings were held and the necessary preparation to make sure that the flow of passengers is as good as possible. Several things have changed in relation to the past year, with the aim of making it easier for passengers to have less hassle from the moment they disembark and all necessary checks to be carried out more quickly."
According to Mr Karusos and the Ministry of Innovation, he has made an important contribution to the procedures, which has improved the cyprusflypass, so as to speed up this process. "For example on Sunday a flight that arrived at Larnaca airport carrying 112 passengers went through the process of coronavirus tests on average, within 11 seconds for each person."
According to the Minister "flights from 50 to 60 per week will reach 160, while from April we will reach 240. We expect tourists in Cyprus from mid-May, since the months of March and April will be pilot, so as to make sure that all protocols of the Republic are functioning normally," adding that
"This year there will be flights from Cyprus to various destinations in European Union countries and elsewhere that we have not had until now or that have not had sufficient connectivity. Among other destinations there are expected to be flights from Cyprus and to France, while there is interest in the descent of tourists to Cyprus from Israel and other Arab countries.
According to the Minister "after 1 May and especially after 15 May, when tourists from the United Kingdom start arriving in Cyprus, there will be increased passenger traffic. That is why teleconferences are constantly taking place with all airlines and we see that there is enough and increased interest."
Asked about the issue of the "green certificate", the Minister of Transport replied that "there is full coordination with the relevant Ministries, we have tabled our positions as the Republic of Cyprus on this issue and there is consultation at European Commission level. Cyprus is in favour of the 'green certificate' since, for some time now, we have supported its implementation and we have even said several times that other European countries should use our own protocols as an example."
Cyprus noted "was the first country to use protocols in conjunction with country categorizations and laboratory analyses in terms of travel. Now a year later, we see that several European countries are adopting our own protocols, which is particularly honouring Cyprus, since it seemed that the right work had been done, which is also recognised at the level of the European Commission."
We expect Yannis Karousos to reach "the final decisions since we believe that the 'green certificate' will help the free movement of citizens in the European Union. This certificate will not exclude any citizen from travelling, whether he has had the vaccine or not, just if he has not been vaccinated he will have to follow some other criteria such as testing or having antibodies'.
However, he noted, "we expect that the issue with the "green certificate" should be completed by the end of June so that it can be exploited by citizens who want to travel."
Source: Eyenews/CYP
