Cyprus air traffic picks up in July

Some 200,000 passengers passed through the gates of Cyprus’ two airports in July, according to Hermes, the operator of Larnaca and Paphos international airports.

In comments to news site Stockwatch, Hermes senior official Maria Kouroupi said that 1,000 commercial flights landed at and flew out of the airports.

“In July, there were 867 flights to and from Larnaca airport and around 215 flights to and from Paphos airport, carrying 200,000 passengers,” said Kouroupi.

She clarified that the flights were from countries that in July were slotted in category A, from which passengers did not need to present a negative coronavirus test, such as Greece – from August 6 it will be demoted to category B.

The other countries were Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

A total of 25 airlines fly to Cyprus, including Wizz Air, Aegean, Cyprus Airways, Blue Air, Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Edelweiss Air, British Airways, Ryanair and Easyjet.

Despite recording an increase compared to June’s passenger traffic, which was limited to 40,000, volume at airports in July was only 14% of the same period last year.

In July 2019, 1.44 million passengers passed through Cyprus airports.

A sharp increase recorded in passenger traffic in recent days is attributed to Cyprus welcoming British tourists back to the island for the first time since mid-March, when the country went into lockdown.

Meanwhile, critics have been posting photos of congestion at the airports in recent days, raising questions about passenger health, Cyprus website Financial Mirror reports.