Paphians have expressed concerns over what appears to be the discontinuation of low budget Ryanair’s flight between Paphos and Athens as of March.
Despite the fact the airline has not made any official statements yet, according to the daily Politis it informed customers who booked tickets to Athens after March to make other arrangements as the flight in question would be discontinued. Passengers were given the option to either change their tickets to other destinations or take a refund, the daily said.
One of the reasons, the daily said citing sources, is the high airport service costs at ‘Eleftherios Venizelos’, Athens’ international airport.
According to reports, the flight will be discontinued at the end of March, but the air carrier would not confirm the move.
On Ryanair’s website however, the very last date one can book a ticket from Paphos to Athens is March 26.
“We have yet to finalise our Paphos summer 2017 schedule, which will include a new route to Tel Aviv,” a spokesperson for the company told the Cyprus Mail.
Earlier in the week the Movement for Paphos’ Salvation expressed concerns over the company’s intentions and called for “coordinated action and reaction” in a bid to reverse this move.
“This intention of the company, provoked legitimate concern and commotion among the passengers, among professionals in the district’s tourism sector, but also frustration and additional hardship to all the people from Greece or other countries that have expressed the wish or will want to visit Paphos in view of Pafos 2017,” the group said in an announcement.
The news come after Ryanair’s announcement on Friday on a new summer route from Paphos to Tel Aviv, with a daily service beginning in March.
This announcement was welcomed by the Paphos tourism board (Etap) that said that this was the result of “years of efforts”.
The daily flights between Paphos and Israel will commence on March 28 until October, Etap said, with the prospect of the continuation of flights on a year-round basis.
The new daily service, Etap said, is encouraging as regards the increase of visitors from Israel.
It added that the Israeli market this year showed a 50 per cent increase compared with 2015 as between January and November there were 141,000 arrivals from Israel.
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