Chaos reigned again yesterday at Ercan Airport as a bailout deal for the TRNC Cyprus Turkish Airlines (CTA) collapsed amid pressure from unions. A deal had seemed all but sealed yesterday, with private Turkish airline Atlas Jet agreeing to buy a 51 per cent share in the stricken airline. CTA has been losing 3.5 million dollars monthly and has amassed around 120 million US dollars worth of debt in total. However, a spokesman for Atlas Jet said yesterday the company was pulling out of the deal because of the rabid opposition shown by the unions.

It is perfectly clear that if the workers and the management cannot work together, there is no way that the struggle needed to save this company can be staged, the spokesman said. Since Monday night all four CTA planes have been grounded after the Turkish aviation authorities revoked the airline’s licences. All workers at offices in Cyprus and abroad have also been on strike. Meanwhile, passengers continue to appear at Ercan hoping CTA’s supposed new partner Atlas would take them to their destination. Those who have booked tickets with CTA say they are receiving absolutely nothing in terms of information of what to expect. British holiday maker Kurt Leeming told the Cyprus Mail he had a holiday booked with the stricken airline in August, but was unsure of whether it would fly.

I’ve rang KTHY offices in London on Wednesday and they could not give any answers other than they expected to be taken over by Atlas in the next few days and that all flights would from then be secured. Also they were not offering or taking any cancellation of bookings.

Travel agents in north Cyprus were saying the same. There is no one at CTA except a security guard, one agent told the Mail yesterday. We can’t take bookings, we can’t take cancellations, we can’t give refunds, we can’t do anything for CTA customers. The agent said most CTA passengers had postponed their return flights in the hope that the problem would be sorted out in a few days. Others had simply paid for flights with other private airlines Atlas Jet and Pegasus, or flown with Turkish Airlines, which also operates out of Ercan. Prior to Atlas Jet’s pulling out of the deal, a 2000 strong group of trades unionists supporting workers at CTA and opposed to the Atlas deal, marched through north Nicosia, stopping at the Turkish Cypriot parliament, finance ministry and headquarters of the ruling National Unity Party (UBP) in Nicosia.

Small scuffles broke out with the police when some protesters began pelting the finance ministry with plastic water bottles. Later, eggs were thrown at the UBP headquarters. The protesters also handed a letter addressed to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Ergdogan at the Turkish embassy, complaining that the deal between CTA and Atlas had been engineered by the Turkish government and imposed on the Turkish Cypriot people. It is now plainly clear that all political and economic policies in north Cyprus are directed by your government, the letter said, adding that the view of the Turkish transport minister Binali Yildirim’s view that Turkish Cypriot were incapable of running an airline was unacceptable.

By CM

By CD