There will be an increase of over 300,000 seats (or 9%) in this winter’s flight schedule compared to the 2018-2019 season, Cyprus airports operator, Hermes Airports announced.
The news comes after the collapse of British tour operator Thomas Cook which had a 5% share of the Cyprus tourism market.
The winter flight season commences on 27 October 2019 and ends on 28 March 2020.
This increase is a result of additional routes to and from Larnaca & Paphos airprots, as well as the introduction of more flights and seats to existing routes.
Wizz Air will launch new routes from Lviv, Chisinau, Kraków and Skopje to Larnaca, while Aegean Airlines is launching a new route from Beirut.
Ryanair will begin a new flight schedule from Beirut, Katowice and Malta to Paphos while also including Kiev in its winter season schedule.
“At the same time, there will be an increase in flights for existing routes to Athens (Cyprus Airways), Tel Aviv (El Al), Frankfurt (Lufthansa), Manchester and Birmingham (Jet2), as well as other destinations,” said Hermes. In total, 70 airlines are currently flying to and from Larnaca and Paphos, connecting Cyprus with 120 destinations in 40 countries.
Maria Kouroupi, Hermes Airports’ senior manager, said that with the introduction of new routes and the boosting of existing ones in each flight season, Cyprus is gradually combating the seasonality of its tourism product.
“At Hermes Airports, we maintain partnerships with all tourism stakeholders in order to open a fixed channel that connects Cyprus to new markets in a coordinated and targeted manner, that also takes into account new global tourism trends,” said Kouroupi.
“The increase noted in flights during winter months over the past few years has already contributed significantly to the overall rise in annual passenger traffic,” she added.
It is estimated that for every additional flight arriving at Cypriot airports, around 100 additional job positions are created.
Larnaca and Paphos generate over 18,000 job positions both in the airports and the Cypriot tourism industry in general.
The operation of the two airports contributes around 4% of Cyprus’ GDP.
