— Troubled carrier to raise CYP 3.6 mln from 6-day offer
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The troubled national carrier, Cyprus Airways, launched a six-day marketing campaign Thursday to sell 60,000 tickets to six destinations to mark the airline’s 60th anniversary.
Some 20,000 tickets were already sold during the first few hours of the offer, with requests coming in at a rate of about 2,000 per hour, a company announcement said.
Despite the advertised price of CYP 60 per return ticket to Athens, Thessaloniki, Heraklion, Rhodes, Bucharest and Sofia, these are actually available online at  www.cyprusairways.com for CYP 70 (EUR 120) including all taxes, fuel surcharges and services fees.
Sales from CAIR counters or from the freephone service on 8000 0008 will have an additional cost of CYP 10 (EUR 17) for the Sofia and Bucharest flights, while travel agencies may charge their own service fee, if any, beyond that.
The “60 years†offer is still better than the CYP 102 for
The tickets are already in great demand, according to a CAIR announcement, and are not limited to any number of seats per the estimated 4,500 flights to the end of the year. However, the offer is only valid for available seats and excludes those pre-sold to major travel agencies for the rest of the year.
The offer, that comes just three days after the cash-strapped airline announced CYP 4.3 mln (EUR 7.4 mln) in losses for 2006, will also improve its cash-flow by CYP 3.6 mln (EUR 6.2 mln) as the tickets for flights to Greece, Romania and Bulgaria will be valid until the end of the year.
The 2006 losses were significantly improved from the CYP 22.6 mln (EUR 38.6 mln) reported in 2005, due to the disposal of the charter-subsidiary Eurocypria to the state for CYP 10.6 mln (EUR 18.1 mln). But this amount was offset by the wider cost-cutting measures as part of the restructuring plan that included the redundancy of 436 people in 2006 at a cost of CYP 10.5 mln (EUR 17.95 mln) and 123 people in 2005 at a cost of CYP 2,97 mln (EUR 5.08 mln).
The airline also finally got parliamentary approval for a guarantee on a EUR 78 mln loan from Hellenic Bank as part of the EU-approved restructuring plan that foresees further cost-cutting and a capital increase of CYP 14 mln (EUR 24 mln).
