.
The troubled national carrier has brought in Lufthansa Consulting to advise it on future prospects, hopes for survival and possibly growth. We don’t know how much LC is being paid for the advice, but we could have done it free of charge – sell the government’s majority stake and you will soon see a Cyprus Airways that will become competitive, behave like a proper public company and deal with trade unions without fear of political meddling.
Unfortunately, the unions have taken control of the Flying Moufflon, as a result of which management cannot embark on new routes and potential for greater revenues, while any talk of mergers or buyouts are subject to approval by the labour organisations. We even have the Ministry of Labour discriminating in favour of one or another union, simply based on the criteria of take-home pay, as was the case when it finally decided to do something in last week’s stand-off with the pilots. It is easy to point a finger at a high-wage earner, but just ten months short of the next elections, the communist government would not dare take the side of the ground crew.
On the other hand, the high-earner pilots also made the mistake of displaying in one of their protest banners that “Cyprus does not need another Eurocypria.”
That was a cheap blow. Despite the fact that market forces should determine one’s wages, even if the pilots deserve higher salaries than the most of the rest of Europe, they were utterly wrong to compare themselves to the charter operator that boasted a payroll that was a third, proportionally, to Cyprus Airways. And yet, Eurocypria was on the verge of profitability, had it not been for corrupt management and poor choice of executives, once again determined by party favours.
Had Eurocypria been privatised a long time ago, as was the initial plan, we would not have had the problems we face today with Cyprus Airways, as, quite simply, the national carrier would have been forced out of business.
So, pilots should think twice about going on strike again and jeopardising their own future (as well as harming the nation’s main source of income – tourism).
Politicians should think twice about siding with any one of the trade unions, or even the management, simply using the voter-count as their sole criteria.
Just sell it off and be done with it!
