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Cyprus Airways (Cyprus)

Cyprus Airways
IATA
CY		 ICAO
CYP		 Callsign
CYPRUS
Founded 1947
Hubs
Focus cities
Frequent flyer program SunMiles
Member lounge Executive Lounge
Fleet size 12
Destinations 28
Parent company Government of Cyprus
Headquarters Nicosia, Cyprus
Key people Kikis N. Lazarides (CEO)
Website www.cyprusairways.com

Cyprus Airways is the national airline of Cyprus, based in Nicosia.[1] It operates scheduled services to over 30 destinations in Europe, the Middle East and the Gulf. Its main operational bases are Larnaca International Airport and Paphos International Airport.

Contents

History

Cyprus Airways was established on 24 September 1947 as a joint venture between the colonial Government of Cyprus, BEA (British European Airways) and private interests. Operations commenced on 18 April 1948 with 3 Douglas DC-3 aircraft on regional routes from Nicosia International Airport.The aircraft flew to Athens,Beirut,Cairo,Haifa, and Rome.During the next three years an additional 3 DC-3 were purchased increasing the fleet to 6 DC-3. New services where introduced to Alexandria,Amman,Bahrain,Khartoum and Lydda, In 1952 the DC-3 were withdrawn from the Nicosia London route and replaced with BEA Elizabethan aircraft avoiding a change in Athens. Under a charter agreement, Cyprus Airways began to use BEA Vickers Viscount 806 airliners from 18 April 1953 over the Athens-Nicosia sector as a continuation of the BEA London-Rome-Athens service.

In 1956 with expansion of routes in mind 2 Vickers Viscount 756 where ordered named St Hilarion G-APCD and Buffavento G-APCE.These aircraft where sold before delivery due to the incertain political situation.It was also decided to sell all the Douglas DC-3 and Auster aircraft in September 1957 and enter into a 5 year agreement with BEA to operate services on behalf of Cyprus Airways.[2]

BEA took over the operation of all Cyprus Airways services effective 26 January 1958 by special arrangement. On 5 April 1960 BEA introduced de Havilland Comet 4b aircraft on the Nicosia, Athens, Rome, London route. The Comets flew in the BEA Livery but had the Cyprus Airways logo and title affixed above the doors of the aircraft. By 1966 the airline had purchased 2 Vickers Viscount 806 aircraft of its own to be used on regional routes.[3]

The first Hawker Siddeley Trident jet was introduced in September 1969. Cyprus Airways used five Trident jets, three of them acquired from BEA. At the start of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 four of the Tridents were stranded at Nicosia International Airport. [4] One was destroyed by Turkish Air force rocket fire, wreckage of tail still exists at Nicosia and one was damaged by small arms fire and lies derelict at Nicosia. The two undamged aircraft were flown out of Nicosia to the United Kingdom in 1977.[4] The damaged aircraft remains in the same position today as it did in 1974 slowly decaying with windows and doors missing. All of the Cypriot airline's operations had to be suspended at that time.

Cyprus Airways was able to restart limited operations from Larnaca on 8 February 1975. In 1992, it established its wholly-owned charter subsidiary Eurocypria Airlines to obtain a greater share of the burgeoning inbound IT charter market to Cyprus. Europcypria was sold in 2006 to the Government of Cyprus.

Cyprus Airways also founded Hellas Jet in Athens (Greece) in 2002 and held a 75% share of that carrier until all but 24 % of the shares were sold to Air Miles in 2005.

On 11 June 2009, following the Air France Flight 447 crash, Cyprus Airways began replacing the pitot tubes on all their Airbus models.

Cyprus Airways is owned by the Government of Cyprus (69.62%) and private shareholders (30.38%) and has 1,220 employees (at March 2007).

Destinations

Main article: Cyprus Airways destinations
Codeshare agreements

Cyprus Airways has codeshare agreements with the following airlines:

Fleet

As of January 2010, the Cyprus Airways fleet consists of the following aircraft [5]:The airline announced on the 12th November 2009 that it would be selling 3 of its Airbus A320 and replacing these with 3 New Airbus A320s with a 160 seat capacity, these being acquired on lease of 6 years, and an additional Airbus A319 with a 128 seat capacity. The first delivery of the new aircraft will commence with 2 Airbus A320 arriving in February and March 2010.[6]

Aircraft In Service Passengers (Business/Economy) Routes Notes
Airbus A319-100 3 126 (12/114) Amman, Athens, Bahrain, Beirut, Brussels, Cairo, Damascus, Dubai, Frankfurt, Heraklion, Jeddah, Rhodes, Rome, Riyadh, Tel Aviv, Thessaloniki, Vienna, Zurich 1 aircraft is leased from ILFC and one is leased from Agrind Lease Ltd
Airbus A320-200 7 158 (15/143)
156 (25/131)		 Amman, Amsterdam, Athens, Bahrain, Beirut, Birmingham, Cairo, Damascus, Dubai, Frankfurt, Heraklion, Jeddah, London-Heathrow, London-Stansted, Manchester, Milan, Moscow, Paris, Rhodes, Rome, Riyadh, Sofia, Tel Aviv, Thessaloniki, Vienna, Zurich 1 aircraft on order from CIT Aerospace to replace ageing A320s
Airbus A330-200 2 295 (30/265) London-Heathrow, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Athens Both aircraft are leased from ILFC
Past Fleet

Livery

The Cyprus Airways livery is an all white fuselage, with the words "Cyprus Airways" in blue over the front passenger windows. The tail is all blue with a mouflon symbol, a type of wild sheep indigenous to Cyprus.

SunMiles

SunMiles is Cyprus Airways' frequent flyer programme. There are 4 tiers of membership: Student, Regular, Premier and Elite.

Services

Cyprus Airways offers travel in economy (Aphrodite class Y) and business class (Apollo class C). Apollo class passengers have access to the Sunjet executive lounge at Larnaca and Paphos Airports.

References

  1. ^ "Addresses." Cyprus Airways. Retrieved on 6 November 2009.
  2. ^ Air Pictorial June 1970
  3. ^ Cyprus Airways Past Present and Future", published by Cyprus Airways Limited 1969
  4. ^ a b Air Pictorial July 1977
  5. ^ http://cyprusair.com/451,0,0,0,2-Our-Aircraft.aspx
  6. ^ http://www.famagusta-gazette.com
  7. ^ Air Pictorial June 1970
  8. ^ www.flightglobal.com

External links

v  d  e
Airlines of Cyprus

Cyprus Airways · Eurocypria Airlines · FOS Logistics
v  d  e
Members of the Association of European Airlines
This article based on this article: Cyprus_Airwaysexternal Link from the free encyclopedia Wikipediaexternal Link and work with the GNU Free Documentation License. In Wikipedia is this list of the authorsexternal Link.