IACA, IATA briefing on airport charge hikes

Representatives from IACA (International Air Carrier Association) and IATA (International Air Transport Association) will hold a joint press briefing about the increased airport charges by Hermes Airports Ltd (at Larnaca and Phaphos airports) on Thursday.

The briefing will follow a meeting between IACA, IATA, the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism and representatives from the ministries of Communications and Works and Finance.

IACA and IATA have been raising awareness about the impact of these new charges on the country’s tourism.

The main issues to be discussed at the meeting with the Government include the new charges for handling, security, fuel throughput and fire services, introduced on April 1 amounting to a 47% increases in charges per passenger; further increases in July and November, giving a total increase of 70% by the end of the year; the fact that the government, which no longer contributes to the costs of the airports, has a concession fee allowing them to take 33% of revenues earned from the airlines; and contrary to Hermes’ comments last week, there has been no agreement by the airlines to accept these new charges

The charges make Cyprus 100% more expensive compared to other similar Mediterranean leisure based airports, according to IACA, which will be providing full details on the benchmarking exercise undertaken to analyse these differences.

Luc Geens, Manager Ground Operations, IACA, a representative from IATA, and Roland Taylor, Chairman of the IACA Charges Committee will be hosting the press conference.

IACA represents 37 airlines serving the leisure industry. IACA members operate over 750 state-of-the-art, environmentally efficient aircraft and directly employ more than 50,000 people. Each year IACA airlines transport over 100 mln passengers to 650 holiday destinations worldwide.