Greece paralysed by strikes, Cyprus Airways cancels 12 flights

Cyprus Airways announced that 12 flights to and from Greece for Wednesday are cancelled due to a general public strike that ends on midnight Wednesday. The strike affects flights from Larnaca to Athens, Thessaloniki and Heraklion, as well as two code-share flights with Olympic.

The strike also affects flights to and from Eleftherios Venizelos operated by Olympic Airways and Aegean Airlines, as well as all international flights into Greece.

Local communications also came to a halt as civil servants, teachers, media, bank employees and transport workers joined the strike called by the two largest trade union, GSEE and Adedy, over social insurance and pension benefits.

Only some of the ‘Ilektriko’ tram lines would work up to 10am to assist workers converging on cetral Athens for a major demonstration, and would resume after 3pm to help strikers return home. All ships and ferries serving the Aegean islands were also stopped.

The strike in Greece comes a day after CAIR ground handling crew at Larnaca and Paphos airports agreed to stand down from their strike in Cyprus over their dispute with the transition to the private contractor Swissport that would have caused havoc on Wednesday, as well as flights on December 17 and 18.